Posted on 12/20/2006 2:12:49 PM PST by Mr. Mojo
Former national security adviser Sandy Berger removed classified documents from the National Archives in 2003 and hid them under a construction trailer, the Archives inspector general reported Wednesday. The report was issued more than a year after Berger pleaded guilty and received a criminal sentence for removal of the documents.
Inspector General Paul Brachfeld reported that when Berger was confronted by Archives officials about the missing documents, he said it was possible he threw them in his office trash.
The report said that when Archives employees first suspected that Berger _ who had been President Clinton's national security adviser _ was removing classified documents from the Archives in the fall of they failed to notify any law enforcement agency.
Berger, who pleaded guilty to unlawfully removing and retaining classified documents, was fined $50,000, ordered to perform 100 hours of community service and was barred from access to classified material for three years.
The report said that when Berger was reviewing the classified documents in the Archives building a few blocks from the Capitol, employees saw him bending down and fiddling with something white, which could have been paper, around his ankle.
However, Archives employees did not feel at the time there was enough information to confront someone of Berger's stature, the report said.
Brachfeld reported that on one visit, Berger took a break to go outside without an escort.
"In total, during this visit, he removed four documents ... .
"Mr. Berger said he placed the documents under a trailer in an accessible construction area outside Archives 1 (the main Archives building)."
Berger acknowledged that he later retrieved the documents from the construction area and returned with them to his office.
Berger, with the authorization of former President Clinton, was reviewing National Security Council documents on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, Sudan, and related presidential correspondence. The review was to facilitate Berger's impending testimony before the House and Senate intelligence committees.
As his attorneys tell it, Berger had no idea in October that documents were missing from the Archives, or that archivists suspected him in the disappearance. It was not until two days later, on Saturday, Oct. 4, that he was contacted by Archives employees who said that they were concerned about missing files, from his September and October visits. This call -- in Berger's version of the chronology, which is disputed in essential respects by a government official with knowledge of the investigation -- was made with a tone of concern, but not accusation. Berger, his attorney Lanny Breuer said, checked his office and realized for the first time that he had walked out -- unintentionally, he says -- with important papers relating to the Clinton administration's efforts to combat terrorism.
bookmarked
The thing is that the case is over for him. He got away with it.
The question is, who, on "our side", is guilty of something that Berger has knowledge, and proof of?
I am assuming this construction trailer was outside??
Now why would he hide them once outside of the building to only come back and retrieve them again ??
The smells of BAD Hollywood movie
What a f%#^#$ piece of s%#$ this man is.
Not if we keep up the drumbeat.... how about legislation enhancing criminal penalties for ex-officials who do this sort of thing
It is too late for him. He has already been tried and sentenced.
He's home free.
I want names.
Well, they must feel obligated to run the story once, knowing that at most it will be buried as a one paragraph item deep, deep within tomorrow's newspapers.
Not only is he walking free...but he was included in on the ISG!!!!
No he wasn't.
So sickening.
How Sloppy of him
He can't be tried for lying to the federal investigators? Oooops,,,never mind. He said the THOUGHT (very Clintonesque) he might have thrown them in the trash. No intent to deceive there. /s
A bad Hollywood movie...and WE got taken!
Berger got antsy because he knows the truth of his activities as Clinton's National Security Adviser would expose him as a complete incompetent..........or worse. It's chilling to read reports that Berger was a "workaholic" at the NSC----always seen surrounded with top-secret documents---often working late. A study of his phone records and computer emails would prove interesting.
Yet, lamebrain Burger running Clinton's NSA under Clinton had a few "successes" (/sarc):
(1) He was on-duty when our technology was sold to China.
(2) He was on-duty when we bombed the aspirin factory, advising Clinton it was manufacturing deadly chemicals.
(3) He was on-duty during Somolia, and Kosovo, and Hatti, and all the other wonderful military success stories of the Clinton administration.
(4) And then there's the infamous Clinton pardons, including the biggest tax cheat in US history---Mark Rich---who absconded, then renounced his US citizenship to evade US prosecution.
(5) Clinton also pardoned 16 terrorists---members of the FALN---- so Hillary could get Latino votes for her Senate run in NY's large Puerto Rican population. The Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN) was involved in more than 100 bombings in the United States during the 1970s and 1980s."
(6) And let's not forget the bombing of the Chinese embassy. Then-Pres Clinton went to Norfolk making a "solemn promise" to the families, friends and shipmates of the USS Cole to avenge their deaths. But when the opportunity presented itslef, he squandered it. Clinton flunky Burger blamed the misstep on the Pentagon. As if anyone in the Pentagon would pass up the chance to avenge the sailors of the USS Cole.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.