If stealing and destroying secret documents, stuffing them into your pants and then lying about it isn’t a crime worthy of jail time, then there’s little on Capitol Hill that will get you locked up:
WASHINGTON (AP) – 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 Clintonistas have always maintained that Berger was always misplacing things, and that the theft was a result of his absent-mindedness, rather than a premeditated crime. This newest report from the inspector general shows that Berger intentionally and deliberately stole secret documents.
From Ed at Captain’s Quarters:
And what were these documents? Copies of reports that dealt with the Clinton administration’s handling of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, copies that likely had unique handwritten notes from the high-ranking officials to whom they were published. They had direct bearing on the counterterrorism efforts of the administration — especially regarding Sandy Berger — at a time when the nation demanded an accounting of the failures that led to 9/11.
Berger got a $50,000 fine and 100 hours of community service for this theft. Had this sequence of events been known at the time he pled guilty, the sentencing would have been seen as the sham it is. Even at that point, all he admitted was that the theft was “not inadvertent”. This strongly suggests that it was planned in advance for a specific purpose, and it’s too late for the Department of Justice to lean on him to discover exactly what that was.
Will Hillary have Sandy Berger on her national-security team for the 2008 election? His three-year revocation of clearance will expire just a few months before the election …
Dan at Riehl World View is “sick and tired of the political class in this country”.
John at Powerline:
It is intensely interesting to speculate on what have been in those documents that would lead a former National Security Adviser to hide them in his pants, secrete them under a construction trailer, and finally spirit them to his office, apparently so he could destroy them.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that it was something especially damning of his former boss, President Bill Clinton.
lesser” stature did this, how many years in Federal prison would they still be serving? UPDATE: Others: Captain’s Quarters, Riehl World View, The Political Pit Bull, The Astute Bloggers, Power Line, UrbanGrounds, Daily Pundit,
Or of Hillary, who was always sticking her nose in official business. If it turned out that she was involved in urging Clinton to treat Islamic radicals with kid gloves, for whatever reason, it wouldn’t bode too well for any future campaign on her behalf.
The documents this serial eff-up [editor's note: Dave, it's ok to use colorful language around here --- it's okay to say Berger was fucked up] stole had the original comments and may have inculcated Berger in a recommendation he wished to consign to an Orwellian “memory hole.”
The American political elites are self-policing, when it comes to the mainstream media which bends over to protect the Clintonistas, and in this case the Archives’ deference to a scofflaw and scoundrel like Berger proves that point.
No need for a cover-up. This will just be another instance of the MSM ignoring an infraction on the left while it literally makes a federal case out of the non-event of the Plame-Wilson contretemps.
I think this story may have first appeared on Drudge (not sure, but that’s where I first saw it). In my opinion, if it wasn’t for the blogosphere, the MSM would never have picked up on it at all.
Why would it have been damaging to Bill or Hillary? Seems if he’s going to risk his career and his freedom, the more likely, less righty conclusion would have been that they were damaging to HIM.