Sandy Berger to plead guilty on documents charge

[Yurt]

And here it is:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former national security adviser Sandy Berger will plead guilty to taking classified material from the National Archives, a misdemeanor, the Justice Department said Thursday.

Berger is expected to appear in federal court in Washington on Friday, said Justice spokesman Bryan Sierra.

The charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material is a misdemeanor that carries a maximum sentence of a year in prison and up to a $100,000 fine.

Link

And if he goes to the pokey, he will really know the meaning of "Bubba"

 

[BR-549]

in which lying was raised to an art form.. Who knows exactly what the documents he destroyed would have revealed? And who put him up to it? Why ole billy boy himself of course.. Once again proving that the slimiest, most dishonest and untrustworthy man ever elected was Bill Clinton.. What a scumbag... And the hero of the liberals.. Show where their hearts and minds are; everything is ok, lying, stealing, adultery, as long as you win elections and fool the people.. Give fat boy Berger a nice long stay in the hoosegow... But of course he won't serve a day.. Just a fine... Great...

 

[Annie]

And here it is:



Link

And if he goes to the pokey, he will really know the meaning of "Bubba"

No pokey. But he DOES lose his security clearance for THREE whole years.

 

[musicman]

No pokey. But he DOES lose his security clearance for THREE whole years.

My, how brutal. Meanwhile, the extent of Clinton's criminal negligence - his degree of culpability in 9/11, remains a non-topic. That it enjoys this convenient status is the direct result of Berger's crime. But, enough about that old, unimportant stuff - LET'S MOVE ON!

 

[Annie]

Links at site

http://www.transterrestrial.com/archives/005059.html#005059

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Mysteriouser And Mysteriouser

What is the credulity level of a reporter who can write a story like this with no allusion to how little sense it makes?

First, the lead:

The Justice Department said yesterday there was no evidence that former national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger was trying to conceal information when he illegally took copies of classified terrorism documents out of the National Archives in 2003...
...Department lawyers concluded that Berger took the documents for personal convenience -- to prepare testimony -- and not with the intent of destroying evidence or thwarting the Sept. 11 panel's inquiry as to whether the Clinton administration did enough to confront a rising terrorist threat.


Then, she writes:

In acknowledging the crime to Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson, Berger said he knowingly took five copies of different versions of the same classified document -- briefings for the Clinton administration on terrorism threats -- from the National Archives in the fall of 2003. As part of his plea, Berger also acknowledged that he destroyed three of the copies, and returned the remaining two to archives officials and said he had "misfiled" them.
How does destroying documents help one "prepare testimony"? The story makes it sound like they were accidentally destroyed, but she can't be bothered to mention that he deliberately shredded them with scissors. There is still no explanation for this, from either her, or at least as she reports, from the Justice Department people.

And what are we to make of this?

Hillman noted that Berger only had copies of the documents -- not the originals -- and so was not charged with the more serious crime of destroying documents.
But if they were only "copies" (indicating that the information on them was identical) why did he need five of them? And what was the purpose of destroying three of them? Is Hillman an idiot? Why did he get such a light sentence when there are so many seemingly unanswered questions?

And I loved this bit:

Friends of Berger said he hopes the embarrassing episode does not badly tarnish his reputation.
As long as Berger, like all corrupt former Clinton officials, has friends in the press, his reputation will apparently be just fine. And does anyone think that this reporting would have been the same if it were a Bush administration official accused of the same thing? No, I suspect there's be much more curiousity on the part of this reporter, and others.

[Update on Monday morning]

For those visitors this morning from Instapundit, note that this is a follow up of an earlier post on this subject.

Despite the wall-to-wall coverage of the passing of the pontiff, we can't let this story fall off the radar, no matter how badly the press wishes that it would go away.

Posted by Rand Simberg at April 02, 2005 10:30 AM

 

[dilloduck]

Hopefully as part of the plea bargain Sandy will go to the "library" for us in North Korea.

 

[NATO AIR]

Its frightening how light this penalty... what kind of example does this set? I'm now of the mind that Bubba's administration was more corrupt than Tricky Dick's.

 

[Annie]

Its frightening how light this penalty... what kind of example does this set? I'm now of the mind that Bubba's administration was more corrupt than Tricky Dick's.

Ya, think you are right. Scary how light the sentence. If this had been an ordinary federal employee guilty of the same, they would have faced felony charges, lifetime loss of security clearance, and near-complete unemployability. For Bubba's inner circle though, the rules seem to be different.

 

[musicman]

Its frightening how light this penalty... what kind of example does this set? I'm now of the mind that Bubba's administration was more corrupt than Tricky Dick's.

Oh, heck yeah. Nixon foolishly and arrogantly concealed post-facto knowledge of a burglary, driven by the feeling that the MSM/DNC were out to get him (wherever did he get an idea like that?). The Clinton nightmare is a (continuing!) parade of mysterious deaths, shredded papers, savaged critics, perjured testimony, baldfaced lies....this guy should have been a Mafia boss, not the Chief Executive!

 

[insein]

Oh, heck yeah. Nixon foolishly and arrogantly concealed post-facto knowledge of a burglary, driven by the feeling that the MSM/DNC were out to get him (wherever did he get an idea like that?). The Clinton nightmare is a (continuing!) parade of mysterious deaths, shredded papers, savaged critics, perjured testimony, baldfaced lies....this guy should have been a Mafia boss, not the Chief Executive!

He's working on secratary general of the useless nations. Thats the worlds biggest organized crime ring. So truth may be stranger than fiction.

 

[NATO AIR]

Oh, heck yeah. Nixon foolishly and arrogantly concealed post-facto knowledge of a burglary, driven by the feeling that the MSM/DNC were out to get him (wherever did he get an idea like that?). The Clinton nightmare is a (continuing!) parade of mysterious deaths, shredded papers, savaged critics, perjured testimony, baldfaced lies....this guy should have been a Mafia boss, not the Chief Executive!

If he was a mafia chief, Hollywood would have already made a flaterring picture of him since he's the affable type

 

[Annie]

Dick Morris column:

http://nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/43934.htm

April 6, 2005 -- FORMER National Security Adviser Sandy Berger has now joined the pantheon of those who, in the im mortal words of Webb Hubbell, have chosen to "roll over one more time" to protect Bill and Hillary Clinton.
This Hall of Ill-Fame includes Susan McDougal, Vince Foster, Monica Lewinsky, Johnnie Chung, former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker and old Webb himself. What they each have in common is their silence and willingness to take the fall to protect the Clintons.

Berger has admitted that he stuffed top-secret documents into his pockets, shirt and pants, and why he sliced some up with scissors, destroyed them and then lied about it. Until he gives a credible explanation for this behavior, we are all entitled to make the logical inference — that he was hiding something to protect himself and his old bosses.

The documents were an "after-action review" by Richard Clarke, then the National Security Council's terrorism expert, discussing and analyzing our efforts to stop attacks during the Millennium celebrations. They were so secret, the Washington Times reports, that anyone seeking to remove the documents would have had to do so in a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. And, it seems, they were so critical of the former administration that Berger felt he needed to steal them. But why did Berger steal them?

The most obvious reason would be to stop the 9/11 commission from including embarrassing revelations in its report.

Yes, the documents Berger purloined were not the only copies, but it's not clear that Berger knew that. Or there may have been handwritten notes in the margins of the copies Berger destroyed — written by the president, Berger or others.

Berger's "explanation" stinks: He claims he was too tired to review the documents in their secure venue, that eye fatigue moved him to stash them in his pocket for later comparison in the leisure of his home and office.

That's nonsense. After all, he went back a week later and helped himself to more documents.

Berger would also have us believe he "inadvertently" cut up and "inadvertently" destroyed the documents — that he had no intention of concealing anything from the commission. And then, I suppose, he inadvertently lied about what he'd done.

Come on. With a shabby explanation like that, Berger invites speculation that he is covering for himself or for the Clintons.

Back in the '90s, I found Berger consistently unwilling to act vigorously against terror-sponsoring nations. When Sen. Al D'Amato proposed sanctions against Iran, Berger tried to get Clinton to veto the bill; it was only after much public pressure that he signed it.

Berger was on a fast track to be the next Democratic Secretary of State. He risked that in stealing those documents. Now he has destroyed his future career by pleading to a criminal misdemeanor — admitting what he did while still concealing why he did it.

The Clintons' reaction when Berger was caught? The former president's comments sound just too scripted to believe: He laughed and said that it was typical of Sandy to be disorganized and forget how he handled documents. Quite a comment about the man he appointed to superintend the nation's secrets.

Then Hillary announced, without being asked, that Sandy had just helped brief her for a February speech at the annual Munich Conference on Security Policy — sending the adviser a signal that he was still part of the family, even though the grand jury was investigating him.

Picture the fevered atmosphere in the months after 9/11. Any indication by the commission investigating the attack that the Clinton administration hadn't taken terrorism seriously would badly damage the former president's reputation and the former first lady's chances. Any loyal adviser would have worked to mitigate the possible damage. The measure of how serious the damage may have been is how far Berger risked falling to prevent it — and how far he did fall rather than reveal why.

Eileen McGann co-authored this column.