Bumbling Spy or Kerrys Fool? Sandy Berger no longer in
"Special Advisor Position" for Kerry's presidential bid.
Bill Clinton said "We were
all laughing about it," when asked about the investigation into Sandy Berger for taking classified
terrorism documents from the National Archives. Osama Bin Laden would also be laughing
too.
Berger, former President Clinton's national security adviser, is under criminal
investigation by the Justice Department after highly classified terrorism documents
disappeared while he was reviewing what should be turned over to the Sept. 11 commission.
Law enforcement sources said archive staff members told FBI agents they saw Berger placing
items in his jacket and pants, and one archive staffer told agents that Berger
also placed something in his socks.
"There are still a lot of questions about whether or not the Kerry campaign
benefited from the information Berger took, destroyed or "lost"
National Archives policy requires that if someone reviews classified
documents and wants to take out handwritten notes, those notes must first be cleared by
archivists. A government source said some of the documents at issue were classified as
"code word" materials -- the highest level of secrecy in the U.S.
government, held more closely than nuclear secrets. The source said the 9/11 commission
was briefed on the Berger investigation, but the White House was never informed of the
matter.
It's against the law for anyone to intentionally mishandle classified documents either by
taking it to give to somebody else or by mishandling it in a way that is outside the
government regulations.
The FBI searches of Berger's home and office occurred after National Archives employees
said they witnessed Berger placing documents in his clothing while reviewing sensitive
Clinton administration papers and that some documents were missing.
Berger said he returned some classified documents that he found in his office and all of
the handwritten notes he had taken from the secure room, but could not locate two or three
copies of the millennium terror report.
"In the course of reviewing over several days thousands of pages of documents on
behalf of the Clinton administration in connection with requests by the Sept. 11
commission, I inadvertently took a few documents from the Archives," Berger said.
"When I was informed by the Archives that there were documents missing, I immediately
returned everything I had except for a few documents that I apparently had
accidentally discarded."
"What could those documents have said that drove Mr. Berger to remove them without
authorization from a secure reading room for classified documents?
"What information could be so embarrassing that a man with decades of
experience in handling classified documents would risk being caught pilfering our
nation's most sensitive secrets?
"Did these documents detail simple negligence or did they contain something more
sinister? Was this a bungled attempt to rewrite history and keep critical information from
the 9/11 Commission and potentially put their report under a cloud?
"It is my understanding that Mr. Berger shoved this classified information into his
clothing to smuggle them out of the National Archives. Press reports indicate that
Archival staff became concerned when documents began to disappear and specifically marked
additional documents to track them. A number of those documents also turned up missing. |
