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.Berger got a slap on the wrist. Just let a Republican try something like that.
The report was issued more than a year after Berger pleaded guilty and received a criminal sentence for removal of the documents.
Inspector General Paul Brachfeld reported that when Berger was confronted by Archives officials about the missing documents, he said it was possible he threw them in his office trash.
The report said that when Archives employees first suspected that Berger - who had been President Clinton's national security adviser - was removing classified documents from the Archives in the fall of 2003, they failed to notify any law enforcement agency...
The report said that when Berger was reviewing the classified documents in the Archives building a few blocks from the Capitol, employees saw him bending down and fiddling with something white, which could have been paper, around his ankle.
However, Archives employees did not feel at the time there was enough information to confront someone of Berger's stature, the report said.
Brachfeld reported that on one visit, Berger took a break to go outside without an escort.
"In total, during this visit, he removed four documents ... .
"Mr. Berger said he placed the documents under a trailer in an accessible construction area outside Archives 1 (the main Archives building)."
Berger acknowledged that he later retrieved the documents from the construction area and returned with them to his office.
Berger, with the authorization of former President Clinton, was reviewing National Security Council documents on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, Sudan, and related presidential correspondence. The review was to facilitate Berger's impending testimony before the House and Senate intelligence committees.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Sandy Burglar
After this report there can't be any doubt that Sandy Berger was trying to hide information potentially damaging to himself or the Clintons (more likely the latter):
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