Posted on 12/21/2006 8:33:30 AM PST by shrinkermd
A former national security adviser to President Clinton, Samuel Berger, stashed highly classified documents under a trailer in downtown Washington in order to evade detection by National Archives personnel, a government report released yesterday said.
The report from the inspector-general for the National Archives, Paul Brachfeld, said Mr. Berger executed the cloak-and-dagger maneuver in October 2003 while taking a break from reviewing Clinton-era documents in connection with the work of the so-called September 11 commission.
" Mr. Berger exited the archive onto Pennsylvania Avenue," the report says, recounting the story the former national security chief told investigators. "He did not want to run the risk of bringing the documents back in the building. … He headed toward a construction area on 9th Street. Mr. Berger looked up and down the street, up into the windows of the archives and the DOJ, and did not see anyone. He removed the documents from his pockets, folded the notes in a ‘V' shape, and inserted the documents in the center. He walked inside the construction fence and slid the documents under a trailer...
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
I bet this guy was glad he wasn't a Republican.
Hm..........
you said it...
It is un'freakin'believable what corrupt Demoncrats can get away with when compared to the rest of US...
That's the bumper sticker I'm seeing around town here in central Oklahoma. (gag)
Well you know, president clinton said he was a sloppy desk kinda guy. All an accident you know.
Im sure glad Nancy Pelosi has made ethics reform a priority
Yep. Once you're an official member of the bipartisan oligarchy that runs the country, you can get away with just about darn near anything without fear of serious reprisal.
"But don't you know? "Democrats care."
Yes, they care about getting elected. And their fellow Democrats in the news media care about helping them get elected.
Who was responsible for Berger's light sentence and what were their motives for such easy punishment?
Third thread on this subject I've seen today.
I don't think there is any doubt that he is on video tape, otherwise they would not have such detailed information of where he looked.
Whoever it was needs to be impeached [that is still the word du jour, isn't it?].
Wish the MSM would give this subject appropriate coverage.
Seems to me there is a great ad here. 2008 election...Hillary running...and we have a chubby guy running around a construction with a library next to it...in the background with a voice..."...the last time a Clinton was in office, they hired a gentleman to help mind the White House slant for them". In the background will be a Sandy Berger character running around a construction with papers falling out of his pants and he is running like Curly of the Three Stooges. He runs back and forth from the construction site to the library. And then the voice says "some state secrets are better kept in the construction site and not in public view."
With that...you take 500,000 votes away from Hillary and reward Sandy the best way possible.
Berger stole our history and walks free. Something's rotten - and it ain't in Denmark.
''bipartisan oligarchy''
That's exactly right. One law for us - no law for them.
Yes, and now what?
:-)
Wouldn't you just know that it would be under a trailer?
Clinton administration officials original response to Burgler's purloining the archive documents was laughter and no surprise because anyone who had ever seen how messy Burgler's desk was would understand how the documents could be misplaced.
And this was our National Security Advisor - not the Absent Minded Professor!!!
I guess Burgler worked under a lot of trailers in DC, too.
ROFL!
"Clinton administration officials original response to Burgler's purloining the archive documents was laughter and no surprise because anyone who had ever seen how messy Burgler's desk was"
That's because Clinton Administration officials are liars, lying on the behalf of Bill Clinton.
LOL
Good point!
"Who was responsible for Berger's light sentence and what were their motives for such easy punishment?"
____________________________________
THAT is the million dollar question!
The New York Sun is reporting on this breaking news of a government report released yesterday. Wonder if the NYT's or any other MSM will give this news appropriate coverage? (or any coverage at all)
Strange that if a single picture of child porn was found under that trailer - the entire American public would be demanding his execution.
Today's America has no sense of priorities, justice, proportion or clues.
And no, this is not a defense of child porn.
In other words Berger, who used to be the NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR, the one person in the entire world who would KNOW ALL rules, laws and regulations concerning the NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVES just mistakenly shoved sensitive NATIONAL SECURITY DOCUMENTS down his pants. Berger just mistakenly shoved sensitive NATIONAL SECURITY DOCUMENTS down his socks.
Berger then just mistakenly attempted to hide NATIONAL SECURITY DOCUMENTS under a construction trailer outside the NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE rather than going back and letting them know he made an honest mistake by shoving NATIONAL SECURITY DOCUMENTS down his pants and socks.
Again, keep in mind, this is the man who was the NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR to Clinton, STEALING NATIONAL SECURITY DOCUMENTS.
This is also absolute proof that the media and the Democrats do not care at all about corruption, about political crime. You can tell by the complete silence on this matter from the likes of Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Bill Clinton, etc.
Evidently, in the eyes of the media and the Democrats, stealing NATIONAL SECURITY DOCUMENTS from the NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVES is only something terrible if a Republican does it.
One reason why I have NO RESPECT WHATSOEVER and I do NOT TRUST LIBERALS is their fake values, their virtual morals.
Stealing from the NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVES is wrong not matter who does it. Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Bill Clinton, the media, etc., evidently think stealing NATIONAL SECURITY DOCUMENTS are okay when a Democrat does it.
And why did he do it? Remember, this has to do with the 9-11 Commission. And what was that Commission's supposed job? To find out why we were caught with our pants down on 9/11/01, in order to insure it never happens again (to protect the peeples). Well, if that were truly the case, the Democratic leadership should be outraged that anyone, ANYONE, would try to compromise that goal.
Instead we get silence from the supposed leaders of our country? We get silence from them, just because Berger is a Democrat? That PROVES that Democrats are not qualified, nor worthy of, the protection of this country. It also PROVES that the 9-11 Commission was nothing more than a CYA, blame the other party joke, rather than an honest way of finding out what went wrong and protecting the American Peeples in the future. And all for poltical gain?
Talk about a culture of corruption!!
Bastard.
limp-wristed?
Can we keep Foley outta this :)
So much for Berger's phony "I accidentally stuffed papers in my briefcase" excuse.
Clinton always had a thing for trailer trash!
Drag a $100 bill through a trailer park and who knows what you'll find.
Cordially,
Last September, a judge ordered Berger to pay a $50,000 fine for his crime. Berger avoided prison time under the punishment handed down by U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson.
In addition to the fine, which exceeded the $10,000 recommended by government lawyers, he was prohibited from access to classified government materials for three years.
"The court finds the fine is inadequate because it doesn't reflect the seriousness of the offense," Robinson said as Berger stood before her.
During the hearing, Berger described his crime as a lapse of judgment.
"I let considerations of personal convenience override clear rules of handling classified material," Berger said. "I believe this lapse, serious as it is, does not reflect the character of myself. In this case, I failed. I will not again."
The stolen documents were copies of highly secret memoranda, possibly with handwritten notes, that allegedly were critical of the Clinton administration's response to the "Millennium 2000" terror plot to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport.
Berger, who was an adviser to the presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry when the scandal broke, has held multiple national security jobs since the Carter administration and recently was a foreign policy adviser to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Berger initially said he took copies of the classified documents regarding terrorism from the National Archives by "accident" and then misplaced them in what he described as an "honest mistake." He later admitted, however, that after pilfering the documents, he destroyed three of the five with scissors at the office of his consulting firm.
In testimony before the 9/11 Commission in April, Attorney General John Ashcroft detailed the highly classified March 2000 document, saying it contained a set of sweeping recommendations on how to combat the al Qaida threat that were completely ignored by the Clinton White House.
"The NSC's Millennium After Action Review declares that the United States barely missed major terrorist attacks in 1999 -- with luck playing a major role," Ashcroft told the Commission.
"Among the many vulnerabilities in homeland defenses identified, the Justice Department's surveillance and FISA operations were specifically criticized for their glaring weaknesses."
"It is clear from the review," declared Ashcroft, "that actions taken in the Millennium Period should not be the operating model for the U.S. government."
The Millennium plot review warned the Clinton administration "of a substantial al Qaida network and affiliated foreign terrorist presence within the U.S., capable of supporting additional terrorist attacks here," the Bush attorney general said.
"Furthermore, fully seventeen months before the September 11 attacks, the review recommends disrupting the al Qaida network and terrorist presence here using immigration violations, minor criminal infractions, and tougher visa and border controls," he explained.
Ashcroft's comments suggested why a former Clinton national security official might not want the information contained in the Millennium review to ever see the light of day.
"Despite the warnings and the clear vulnerabilities identified by the NSC in 2000," he told the Commission, "no new disruption strategy to attack the al Qaida network within the United States was deployed. It was ignored in the Department's five-year counterterrorism strategy."
Mark R. Levin
April 15, 2004, 4:34 p.m.
Millennial Mistake
Jamie Gorelick’s dangerous “wall of separation.”
In his public testimony before the 9/11 Commission the other day, Attorney General John Ashcroft exposed Commissioner Jamie Gorelick's role in undermining the nation's security capabilities by issuing a directive insisting that the FBI and federal prosecutors ignore information gathered through intelligence investigations. But Ashcroft pointed to another document that also has potentially explosive revelations about the Clinton administration's security failures. Ashcroft stated, in part:
http://www.nationalreview.com/levin/levin200404151634.asp
Berger May Have Taken Documents That Replaced Earlier Documents He Took!
Washington Post ^ | Monday, July 19, 2004; 9:11 PM | By John Solomon
Buried on Page 2: "Breuer said the Archives staff first raised concerns with Berger during an Oct. 2 review of documents that at least one copy of the post-millennium report he had reviewed earlier was missing. Berger was given a second copy that day, Breuer said. Officials familiar with the investigation said Archives staff specially marked the documents and when the new copy and others disappeared, Archives officials called Clinton attorney Bruce Lindsey to report the disappearance."
Let's all call Sandy Berger "the Trailer Park Burglar". Has a nice ring.
Berger Investigation Stretches Into Second Year
NY Sun ^
Posted on 12/08/2004 5:38:35 AM PST by bikepacker67
More than a year after President Clinton's top national security adviser, Samuel Berger, walked out of the National Archives with top-secret documents, a criminal investigation into the matter remains open with no sign of any imminent action.
Legal and national security experts say the delay may be an indication of how Mr. Berger's case has put the Justice Department in a tough political pickle. If prosecutors hit the former official with a criminal charge, Democrats will complain of a political vendetta. If Mr. Berger is let off with an administrative punishment, such as revocation of his security clearance, hard-liners will squawk about a double standard that overlooks classified information breaches committed by high-ranking officials.
(Excerpt) nysun.com ...
"Arguably, Berger has already been severely punished by being publicly humiliated and by having his participation in the Kerry campaign derailed," Mr. Aftergood said. "It could well be argued that justice has been served already and that no further expenditure of government resources is warranted."
Sandy Berger gets off easy
Townhall ^ | 4/6/05 | Gary Aldrich
Posted on 04/06/2005 7:58:17 PM PDT by Crackingham
Recently the Bush Justice Department entered into a plea bargain with Sandy Berger, the now infamous former National Security Advisor to President Clinton, who admitted to stealing top secret documents from the National Archives, but only after he was caught red-handed.
He admitted to taking five documents home and destroying three with a pair of scissors. The reasons why he stole them in the first place and why he destroyed three remain hazy. Usually, the prosecutor and the sentencing judge in a criminal case want to know the heart and mindset of a perpetrator, so that appropriate punishment can be applied for the crime committed. If the Bush Justice Department knows why Berger did what he did, they are not saying so. Of course, Berger continues to surround himself with the usual Clintonesque rhetoric which amounts to mouthing words of innocence and benign motivations based on pure intentions.
In fact, one could interpret Berger's artfully crafted explanations so as to develop sympathy for the man Clinton says, "worked his heart out to protect our national security." Of course Clinton and his shrew of a wife were the hardest workers of all in that dysfunctional administration—and if you don't believe that, just ask them.
Berger maintains that he was tired and wanted to study the documents at home. He didn't want to raise too much of a fuss returning them, so he chopped up three as a favor to Archives staff. Gee, what a nice guy! Who could dislike this guy?
A recent editorial in the Washington Times suggests such slaps on the wrist send the wrong message and may cause citizens to become even more cynical about their government. The Times is my favorite newspaper, but I honestly believe they are behind the curve in assessing the mindset of the average citizen. Is it a surprise to anyone that less than 50% of the population bothers to vote? Could it be that they have become so cynical that they have lost all interest in participation in their own government? If this was the case, would anyone be surprised?
b
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