A Clinton flunkie gets nabbed for stealing classified documents. The guy flat our lied and stole documents.
Not surprising though…He didn’t have much of a role model.
WASHINGTON — For months, he called it an honest mistake.
But on Friday, Sandy Berger (search) pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in federal court. Berger, who served as President Clinton’s national security adviser, is acknowledging that it wasn’t an honest mistake and that he intentionally took and destroyed copies of classified documents from the National Archives (search) and cut them up with scissors.
Berger acknowledged to U.S. Magistrate Deborah Robinson that he intentionally took and deliberately destroyed three copies of the same document dealing with terror threats during the 2000 millennium (search) celebration. He then lied about it to Archives staff when they told him the documents were missing.
“Guilty, your honor,” Berger responded when asked how he pleaded.
Robinson did not ask Berger why he cut up the materials and threw them away at the Washington office of his Stonebridge International consulting firm. Berger, accompanied by his wife, Susan, did not offer an explanation when he addressed reporters outside the federal courthouse following the hearing.
He probably deserves more than a $10,000 fine and losing his clearance.
I don’t know what the big deal is. I am sure if Condi Rice stuffed documents in her bra, the media would ignore that story too.
He’ll get his clearance back in time to become Secretary of State in the Hillary Clinton administration.
You think Hillary will be the next President?
Hmmmmmm, interesting.
For clarification, Berger did not stuff the documents in his underwear as the right wing charged. I wonder if the people who created and passed around that rumour will do the right thing and apologize.
What Berger did though was terrible and I think he deserves far more than $10,000 fine. He should do some time behind bars. At least as much as Martha did.
There were stuffed in his pants and socks, weren’t they?
Berger has told so many versions of the story I can’t really keep up.
I think Republicans would be foolish to assume she could be beaten easily. If, for example, she could hold all the "Blue " states that Kerry got, and pick up Arizona, New Mexico, and or Colorado by selecting Bill Richardson as her running mate, she could win the electoral vote.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16706-2005Mar31.html
“On Sept. 2, 2003, the associate said, Berger put a copy of the Clarke report in his suit jacket. He did not put it in his socks or underwear, as was alleged by some Republicans last summer.”
The story about the documents being placed in his socks and underwear were not created by Berger. That was fabricated by someone on the right.
As I said, I think he should do jail time. But he has confessed, cooperated fully with the investigator, and plead guilty. I just wish others in DC would actually follow his model and take personal responsibility for their actions. Actually, I wish they would stop doing illegal and immoral things. Then they wouldn’t need to take responsibility.
GOP strategist Patrick Ruffini (http://www.patrickruffini.com/archives/2005/03/hillarybushing.php) agrees with you:
"Beating Hillary is going to require a tough as nails campaign, at least as tough as anything Kerry had to face. But it would be a mistake to the think that rehashing ‘90s Hillary-bashing will do the trick. Instinctively, I think voters will punish the side seen as the most backward-looking – which presents an opportunity. Once Hillary starts harping on the good ol’ days of the '90s, hit back on the complacency and prosperity-induced lull that culminated in 9/11, and very quickly pivot to the future. Our candidate should make clear that he or she does not want to return to the status quo of any decade, but to lead America into the future. Remember also that the Bush campaign could have easily run a cookie-cutter campaign with the obvious line of attack of Kerry as Massachusetts liberal. Instead they settled on the resolute vs. flip-flopper narrative that nicely suited the political environment in 2004, playing to the President’s strengths. The campaign in '08 will similarly have to tailor its lines of attack to suit the political environment, not simply reach back fifteen years into history.
“Make no mistake: beating Hillary is going to be hard work. Hillary-hatred isn’t going to do the trick any more than Bush-hatred did. America’s President must be an icon, and Hillary has this going for her: she already is an icon of the Left. To think we can skate by with a relative unknown who’s simply the anti-Hillary and who doesn’t have the self-confidence to build beyond the base (Kerry’s mistake) would be a colossal error.”
I don’t understand how you can say he has cooperated. His story went from inadvertantly taking the files and losing or throwing them away to shredding them with sissors.
We will never know what comments were on the documents he shredded, but we can be certain he did it for a very good reason.
I doubt he will get his security clearance back. This will disqualify him from being Secretary of State. Can you imagine the confirmatin hearing?
why are these stories so frequently perpetuated as ‘evil dems’ vis a vis ‘good repubs’? berger’s a louse, who got caught. he deserves much more punishment than he got. i dont think it matters a bit that he’s a clintonian democrat … he’s a modern politico playing The Game.
We will never know what comments were on the documents he shredded
Art,
All of the stories I’ve read said he took **copies **of documents. Is this not true?
why are these stories so frequently perpetuated as ‘evil dems’ vis a vis ‘good repubs’?
Because someone inevitably makes a stupid statement, like “Sure, Berger deliberately stole classified documents, but he didn’t smuggle them out in his underwear, he smuggled them out in his suit pocket! Apologize!”
Ok Sherlock; who had more members of his administration charged/convicted of crimes? Clinton or Reagan?
Unbelievable. I work for a military supplier (a tier 2 contractor, not a prime like LM or Boeing, et. al.) and if I pulled something like that with any classified or even USML materials, you can bet yer ass I’d be in jail.
Man that pisses me off.
I’m not exactly sure which administration had more convictions or charges.
I do know out of the choice of Clinton or Reagan, one of them was impeached.
Like the old saying goes, the fish rots from the head down.
He took copies of documents created by our old friend Richard Clarke, but they were individually marked up by the policy makers in the course of responding to them. So each document was, in fact, unique.
Berger took three of them and shreded them, and I believe he returned two others. He did it for a reason. It is a fair guess that there were embarassing comments on them when viewed in the aftermath of 9/11 and the then ungoing contraversy surrounding Richard Clarke. This was all before his story fell apart.
We will just never know for sure. You can be certain the MSM will not dig to the bottom of the story.
That’s bad. Why don’t we keep multiple copies?
these are top secret guarded documents in the archives. One doesn’t expect them to disappear.