New non-story for the media to ignore

Normally, having the ex-NSA who is now on the opposition's foreign policy team during a presidential election stealing highly classified memos by cramming them down his pants would appear rather.......unseemly. But no worries. He's a Democrat. No harm, no foul. On to more important stories, like whether the turkey Bush served to troops was actually eaten or not.

AP: Clinton Adviser Probed in Terror Memos

Jul 19, 9:00 PM (ET)

By JOHN SOLOMON

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger, is the focus of a Justice Department investigation after removing highly classified terrorism documents and handwritten notes from a secure reading room during preparations for the Sept. 11 commission hearings, The Associated Press has learned.

Berger's home and office were searched earlier this year by FBI agents armed with warrants after he voluntarily returned documents to the National Archives. However, still missing are some drafts of a sensitive after-action report on the Clinton administration's handling of al-Qaida terror threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration.

Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed handwritten notes he had made while reading classified anti-terror documents at the archives by sticking them in his jacket and pants. He also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio, they said.

"I deeply regret the sloppiness involved getting caught, but I had no intention of withholding documents from the commission, and to the contrary, to my knowledge, every document requested by the commission from the Clinton administration was produced," Berger said in a statement to the AP.

Lanny Breuer, one of Berger's attorneys, said his client has offered to cooperate fully with the investigation but had not yet been interviewed by the FBI or prosecutors. Berger has been told he is the subject of the criminal investigation, Breuer said.

Berger served as Clinton's national security adviser for all of the president's second term and most recently has been informally advising Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Clinton asked Berger last year to review and select the administration documents that would be turned over to the commission.

The FBI searches of Berger's home and office occurred after National Archives employees told agents they believed they saw Berger place documents in his clothing while reading sensitive Clinton administration papers and that some documents were then noticed missing, officials said.

When asked, 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 highly classified 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," he said.

Breuer said Berger believed he was looking at copies of the classified documents, not originals.

Berger was allowed to take handwritten notes but also knew that taking his own notes out of the secure reading room was a "technical violation of Archive procedures, but it is not all clear to us this represents a violation of the law," Breuer said.

Government and congressional officials familiar with the investigation, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because the probe involves classified materials, said the investigation remains active and no decision has been made on whether Berger should face criminal charges.

The officials said the missing documents were highly classified, and included critical assessments about the Clinton administration's handling of the millennium terror threats as well as identification of America's terror vulnerabilities at airports to sea ports.

Berger testified at one of the commission's public hearings about the Clinton administration's approach to fighting terrorism. The former president answered the panel's questions at a private meeting.

The former national security adviser himself had ordered his anti-terror czar Richard Clarke in early 2000 to write the after-action report and has spoken publicly about how the review brought to the forefront the realization that al-Qaida had reached America's shores and required more attention.

Berger testified that during the millennium period, "we thwarted threats and I do believe it was important to bring the principals together on a frequent basis" to consider terror threats more regularly.

The missing documents involve two or three draft versions of the report as it was evolving and being refined by the Clinton administration, officials and lawyers say. The Archives is believed to have copies of some of the missing documents.

In the FBI search of his office, Berger also was found in possession of a small number of classified note cards containing his handwritten notes from the Middle East peace talks during the 1990s, but those are not a focus of the current criminal probe, officials and lawyers said.

Breuer said the Archives staff first raised concerns with Berger during an Oct. 2 review of documents that at least one copy of the post-millennium report he had reviewed earlier was missing. Berger was given a second copy that day, Breuer said.

Officials familiar with the investigation said Archives staff specially marked the documents and when the new copy and others disappeared, Archives officials called Clinton attorney Bruce Lindsey to report the disappearance.

Berger immediately returned all the notes he had taken, and conducted a search and located two copies of the classified documents on a messy desk in his office, Breuer said. An Archives official came to Berger's home to collect those documents but Berger couldn't locate the other missing copies, the lawyer said.

He retained counsel, and in January the FBI executed search warrants of a safe at Berger's home as well as his business office where he found some of the documents. Agents also failed to locate the missing documents.

Justice Department officials have told the Sept. 11 commission of the Berger incident and the nature of the documents in case commissioners wanted more information, officials said. The commission is expected to release its final report Thursday.

Congressional intelligence committees, however, have not been formally notified.

"The House Intelligence Committee has not been informed on the loss or theft of any classified intelligence information from the Archives, but we will follow up and get the information that is appropriate for the committee to have," the committee said Monday in a statement. "And if it has occurred, we should be informed. If there has been delay in getting the information to the committee we need to know why."

Berger is the second high-level Clinton-era official to face controversy over taking classified information home.

Former CIA Director John Deutch was pardoned by Clinton just hours before Clinton left office in 2001 for taking home classified information and keeping it on unsecured computers at his home during his time at the CIA and Pentagon. Deutch was about to enter into a plea agreement for a misdemeanor charge of mishandling government secrets when the pardon was granted.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040720/D83U6TIO0.html

um, it's on the AP wire, and I just heard about it on NPR. So how again is "the media" ignoring it?

Damn, I just posted about this too..

of course, since it happened nearly four years since the end of Clinton's term, it surely means that we should smear Bill for all the mistakes of his former subordinates.

Who's doing that? Not me. BTW, MD. What I mean by it being "ignored" is to see how much coverage the story will garner. Will ABC News run THREE seperate notices about this story during their regular nightly broadcast, like they did with Paul O'Neill's book (who ALSO boosted classified documents and took them home, although not with such malfeasance nor political significance as Berger's crime) critical of the Bush Administration?

Will CBS devote three entire 60 Minutes segments to this story like they did with Richard Clarke's book? Will the New York Times run front-page, above the fold stories with all sorts of useful commentary about how bad this all looks, or will they put it on page A16, along with stories about the economy's positive performance or how Joseph Wilson lied about his wife having anything to do with his appointment to the Niger uranium investigation?

Will they run stories about "Trousergate" for 30 days straight like they did with Abu Ghraib? My guess is, no on all of these points. But they'll run one story, so they can say "We covered it." then they'll do their best to forget it.


[Edited on Jul 19, 2004 by stockula]

[Edited on Jul 19, 2004 by stockula]

significance, man, significance. That's what all the stories you mentioned, EXCEPT this one, have.

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt, dude.

Why don't you wait a few days before making judgements?

Benefit of the doubt, and all that? Maybe the media's unwillingness to take anything the Bush administration says at face value and ignoring and positive developments in Iraq or the economy, while falling over themselves to give his critics and setbacks huge amounts of air time and ink has something to do with it.

But hey, maybe I'm all wrong. Maybe this is the new Watergate. Maybe the media will call for Kerry to shun Berger, and demand to know what he was trying to hide. But going by past experience, there's absolutely no reason to believe that is what will happen.

[Edited on Jul 19, 2004 by stockula]

you mean the media didn't give Clinton's critics and setbacks huge amounts of air time?

to the extent that the current media is becoming increasingly skeptical of BushCo (after a long nap), that is simply the role of a free press: to be skeptical and critical of the government and its leadership, no matter the party. Duh.

So, Berger accidentally took home classified documents, shared them with no one (as far as we know), promptly returned them when the error was pointed out and is cooperating with the subsequent investigation. That doesn’t sound very scary.

Accidentally, my ass.

And he only returned the ones that didn't 'accidentally' end up in the garbage.

You don't 'accidentally' put confidential papers in your briefcase, and you certainly don't accidentally take them home and throw them away.

Would that you could locate it, what with it running through your back yard and all.

Sorry Stock, but taking home copies of classified documents dealing with a thwarted threat going back five years is, while incredibly careless, pretty much a non story.

Ginning up a case for the first offensive war in history and compromising intelligence agents is, like it or not, a story, and a story that is in fact not getting the coverage it deserves because people like you still don't grasp that the portions Senate intelligence committee report you're so fond of were added into the record by Jesse Freakin' Helms, not any analyst or policy expert.

Now about those mustard gas shells the Danes found...

Riddle me this, Batman? Why... would... he... take... them?

Anyone with code word clearance can access them. Thousands of other people have or have read the significant documents. Its not like he was going to squirrel away the only copy of some smoking gun to avoid embarrassment. I mean really do you think his devious plan was to keep asking for copies and taking them home until the National Archives ran out of toner?

To. Destroy. Them.

I'm glad you don't run a newspaper; I think you'd lose a lot of money because you don't seem to understand the business. People don't care too much about the doings of former underlings of former presidents -- but when someone is spilling the beans about the current, sitting, still-in-power President -- that's news. You get what I'm sayin'?

It is of no consequence to most people what former Clinton appointees do, because Clinton is no longer in power. Is Sandy Berger a threat to national security? No. But it is very relevent to most people what the current President is doing wrong right this very moment.

[Edited on Jul 20, 2004 by Keith]

Nice edit. Doesn't change the fact that they were copies made for his review. Again, copies. Copies that can and likely were made againHis purpose there as the NSA during the period in question was toredact information that might still be sensitive This is why it is bad that he took them home: because some of it might be and shouldn't be lying around his spare bedroom. Once again, he was looking at it to prepare for his testimony and to tell the archive what couldn't be declassified. Taking them home would, in no way keep other people from reading them. To keep other people from reading them, all he would have had to do is say "Don't let other people read them, these should remain highly classified in the interest of national security."

i heard about this on prime time CNN yesterday, so i don't think that constitutes an ignoral by the media.

I have to sleep sometime, bean. Meanwhile I open up the NY Times's webpage this morning and find.........nothing on the front page about Berger stuffing his crotch with classified memos.

http://www.nytimes.com

I didn't see that coming! You have to hunt for the story in the Washington section, where it's the last story on page 16 in the print edition (I called that one, didn't I?) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/20/politics/20document.html

The bias of the NY Times is not just glaringly obvious, it's predictable as well.

Meanwhile, on good ol' Fox News, Berger's crime is front and center.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,126249,00.html






[Edited on Jul 20, 2004 by stockula]

That really seems like how they're spinning it up in the absence of information. Clearly, the Millennium report was a copy because he asked for and received a second one.

Ummm, Stock, just because its a guy you don't like getting busted, still doesn't make it headline news, no matter how many times you and the rest of the people who let Bernard Goldberg think for you bitch and moan.