Sandy Bergergate

Is he advising Hillary Clinton or isn't he?

Almost a month ago, it was noted by Michael Hirsh of Newsweek that Sandy Berger was an integral part of Hillary's campaign advisory team.

Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has relied largely on her husband and a triumvirate of senior officials from his presidency—former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, former U.N. ambassador Richard Holbrooke and former national-security adviser Sandy Berger (who tries to keep a low profile after pleading guilty in 2005 to misdemeanor charges of taking classified material without authorization).

Yesterday, another report stated that Berger was back, this one by Bill Sammon in The Examiner.

Sandy Berger, who stole highly classified terrorism documents from the National Archives, destroyed them and lied to investigators, is now an adviser to presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Berger, who was fired from John Kerry’s presidential campaign when the scandal broke in 2004, has assumed a similar role in Clinton’s campaign, even though his security clearance has been suspended until September 2008. This is raising eyebrows even among Clinton’s admirers.

Hillary Clinton's camp is denying that Bill Clinton's former national security adviser Sandy Berger is officially part of the former First Lady's presidential campaign team.

WASHINGTON -- Hillary Clinton claims Sandy Berger has "no official role" in her campaign after Republican lawmakers blasted her Monday upon learning that Clinton's campaign is taking advice from the former top aide to President Bill Clinton who admitted stealing classified documents and disposing them.

...The New York Democrat's campaign downplayed the fact, saying Monday that Berger is an informal, unpaid adviser to the campaign, something ascribed to many people associated with the campaign. Berger has been a longtime friend of both Clintons.

"He has no official role in the campaign," spokesman Blake Zeff said.

Aides to the New York Democrat were unapologetic about Berger's advisory role, noting he is not a central figure but has valuable and welcome input that he is providing voluntarily.

Yeah, yeah, right.

No official role, blah, blah, blah.

I don't buy it that he's not a central figure.

Good grief, look at what Berger did for the Clintons.

On the evening of Oct. 2, 2003, former White House national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger stashed highly classified documents he had taken from the National Archives beneath a construction trailer at the corner of Ninth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW so he could surreptitiously retrieve them later and take them to his office, according to a newly disclosed government investigation.

The documents he took detailed how the Clinton administration had responded to the threat of terrorist attacks at the end of 1999. Berger removed a total of five copies of the same document without authorization and later used scissors to destroy three before placing them in his office trash, the National Archives inspector general concluded in a Nov. 4, 2005, report.

After archives officials accused him of taking the documents, Berger told investigators, he "tried to find the trash collector but had no luck." But instead of admitting he had removed them deliberately -- by stuffing them in his suit pockets on multiple occasions -- Berger initially said he had removed them by mistake.

It gets even weirder.

In September and October, Berger was able to sneak papers -- slight variations of a report titled "Millennium Alert After Action Review," which looked at U.S. vulnerabilities to terrorists, as well as the notes he took from other classified documents -- into his pockets, the report said, because an unnamed senior official left the room while Berger made or took phone calls.

Although one archives official claimed to have seen Berger fiddling with what appeared to be a piece of paper "rolled around his ankle and underneath his pant leg," Berger told investigators he was merely pulling up his socks, which he said "frequently fall down." He said "this story was absurd and embarrassing."

Berger said that after spending hours at the archives on Oct. 2, he took a walk outside past a construction fence to leave four classified copies of the millennium document beneath a trailer. He later explained that he needed to return to the building for several additional hours of work and was worried that guards would see the documents bulging in his suit.

Berger got caught partly because suspicious archives employees secretly numbered the millennium document copies they showed him in October. When an official challenged him by telephone on Oct. 4, he turned over two copies of the millennium document that he said he had accidentally kept.

Of course Republicans blasted Hillary for utilizing the services of Berger.

HE'S A CROOK.

And of course, the Hillary campaign is pretending that Berger isn't a central figure in its advisory team.

I guess that technically may be true.

It would depend on what the meaning of "central" is. And it would depend on what the meaning of every other word is, including "is."

I'm glad Republicans commented on Hillary and Berger. Regardless of Berger's role in Hillary's campaign, I think Republicans should be calling attention to the Berger incident. When a former national security adviser hides highly classified documents stolen from the National Archives at a construction site, that's a problem.

It's important to remind Americans what a Hillary Clinton presidency would entail. In many ways, it would be a resumption of the Bill Clinton era. It would be a third term. It would be a continuation of all that sleaze.

I think it's embarrassing that the Hillary campaign is downplaying Berger's role as adviser, saying he's just an unpaid, informal helper, a volunteer.

Who cares if Berger is supposedly serving only as an unpaid buddy?

The status that's relevant is that he's a crook and Hillary has him as part of her inner circle.

That matters.

Sandy Berger Advises Hillary

Wordsmith at Sparks from the Anvil comments on Hillary Clinton's campaign helpers.

Adding Sandy Berger to her team shows a serious lapse in judgment, almost as bad as when Bill chose to get involved with Monica Lewinsky after that first peek at her thong.

Read more at the Volokh Conspiracy.

Bergermeister Meisterberger

'Tis the season for Christmas TV specials.

Santa Claus is Comin' to Town does not rate as one of my favorites. It's a Rankin/Bass stop motion animated special, the same team that brought us Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

I think it's really rather strange and kind of creepy.

Fred Astaire makes for a pleasant enough narrator, but the other characters in the special are weird. Red-haired Kris Kringle and that trampy-looking Jessica and the villainous Burgermeister Meisterburger are odd players in the bizarre story of the origins of Santa Claus.


Burgermeister Meisterburger

If you're looking for a story that has a creepy character and a strange plot, you don't need to look to a decades old Christmas special.

New details have been made available in the Sandy Berger "Dox in Sox" affair.

It's not a Christmas story, but it does have Sandy Bergermeister Meisterberger.

And if it weren't so serious -- dealing with national security, obstructing the work of the 9/11 Commission, covering up for the Clinton administration -- it would be a much more entertaining tale than Santa Claus is Comin' to Town and offering many more laughs, too.


Sandy Berger(meister Meisterberger)

From The Washington Post:

On the evening of Oct. 2, 2003, former White House national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger stashed highly classified documents he had taken from the National Archives beneath a construction trailer at the corner of Ninth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW so he could surreptitiously retrieve them later and take them to his office, according to a newly disclosed government investigation.

The documents he took detailed how the Clinton administration had responded to the threat of terrorist attacks at the end of 1999. Berger removed a total of five copies of the same document without authorization and later used scissors to destroy three before placing them in his office trash, the National Archives inspector general concluded in a Nov. 4, 2005, report.

After archives officials accused him of taking the documents, Berger told investigators, he "tried to find the trash collector but had no luck." But instead of admitting he had removed them deliberately -- by stuffing them in his suit pockets on multiple occasions -- Berger initially said he had removed them by mistake.

Incredible, isn't it?

What was Berger thinking?

The fact that Berger, one of President Bill Clinton's closest aides from 1997 to 2001, illicitly removed the documents is well-known: A federal judge in September 2005 ordered him to pay a $50,000 fine for his actions and forfeit his security clearance for three years.

Right. It is well-known, but the lib media don't seem to have much interest in digging deeper.

There's little investigative reporting on the incident.

Here is some information on the efforts by the Landmark Legal Foundation to find out more details about what the Bergermeister stole from the National Archives.

What Berger did, and the ham-handed and comical methods by which he did it, are freshly detailed in the National Archives report, which the Associated Press obtained first under a Freedom of Information Act request.

Although the report reiterates that Berger's main motive was to prepare himself for testifying before a commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, it makes clear that he not only sought to study the documents but also destroyed some copies and -- when initially confronted -- denied he had done so.

It's as though AP obtained the report to make it appear as if it were on top of the story.

I think the intention is really to bury it, a "let's move on" tactic, nothing to see here.

His lawyer, Lanny Breuer, said in a statement yesterday that Berger "considers this matter closed, and he is pleased to have moved on."

The matter isn't closed. Naturally, Berger wants it to be closed, but the Landmark Legal Foundation doesn't look at it that way.

...In the statement, Breuer emphasized that the Justice Department concluded that other copies of the documents at issue existed and that they were provided to the Sept. 11 commission. He also said the Justice Department affirmed that Berger had no intent to hide the contents.

Huh?

No intent to hide the contents?

He certainly intended to hide the documents. He went to extreme lengths to sneak out docs, destroy them, and lie about what he did.

Why did Berger stash "highly classified documents he had taken from the National Archives beneath a construction trailer at the corner of Ninth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW so he could surreptitiously retrieve them later and take them to his office"?

Why did he cut up documents with a scissors?

He was doing a lot of sneaking around considering he supposedly had nothing to hide.

...In September and October, Berger was able to sneak papers -- slight variations of a report titled "Millennium Alert After Action Review," which looked at U.S. vulnerabilities to terrorists, as well as the notes he took from other classified documents -- into his pockets, the report said, because an unnamed senior official left the room while Berger made or took phone calls.

Although one archives official claimed to have seen Berger fiddling with what appeared to be a piece of paper "rolled around his ankle and underneath his pant leg," Berger told investigators he was merely pulling up his socks, which he said "frequently fall down." He said "this story was absurd and embarrassing."

Can't Berger afford longer, better fitting socks?

What about sock garters?

Berger said that after spending hours at the archives on Oct. 2, he took a walk outside past a construction fence to leave four classified copies of the millennium document beneath a trailer. He later explained that he needed to return to the building for several additional hours of work and was worried that guards would see the documents bulging in his suit.

So Bergermeister, are those classified documents in your suit or are you just happy to see me?

Who puts classified documents beneath a trailer???

UNBELIEVABLE!

Berger got caught partly because suspicious archives employees secretly numbered the millennium document copies they showed him in October. When an official challenged him by telephone on Oct. 4, he turned over two copies of the millennium document that he said he had accidentally kept.

I don't know why Berger isn't in jail.

I bet he wouldn't be bending over to pull up his socks there.

Sloppy Sandy Berger Update

I don't want to be sloppy.

I don't want this story to get lost, the way Sandy Berger stole, lost, and destroyed documents from the National Archives.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A group of House Republicans called Wednesday for a congressional investigation into the improper handling of classified documents by President Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger.
Berger admitted last year that he deliberately took classified documents out of the National Archives in 2003 and destroyed some of them at his office. He pleaded guilty in federal court to one charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material and was fined $50,000.

Ten lawmakers led by House Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter, R- Calif., and Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., released a letter calling for the House Government Reform Committee to investigate.

They asked the committee to determine whether any documents were missing from Clinton administration terrorism records, to review security measures for classified documents and to seek testimony from Berger.

...At issue is a strange sequence of events in which Berger admitted to sneaking classified documents out of the National Archives in his suit, later destroying some of them and then lying about it. The Bush administration disclosed the investigation in July 2004, just days before the Sept. 11 commission issued its final report.

Eventually, the truth will come out, just as classifed documents were pulled out of Berger's socks.

Bill Clinton is probably practicing his finger-wagging moves right now.

_______________________________

Sample Sloppy Berger's highlight reel here, here, and here.

DOX IN SOX

In case you've forgotten about the crime committed by Sandy Berger, national security adviser to Clinton during his second term, here's an excerpt from an April 1, 2005, CNN report to refresh your memory:

The charging document states that between September 2 and October 2, 2003, Berger "knowingly removed classified documents from the National Archives and Records Administration and stored and retained such documents at places ... including his place of employment."

An associate of Berger told CNN the former national security adviser admitted to the Justice Department he originally took five copies of an after-action report -- one during his September 2003 visit to the Archives and four during his October 2003 trip.

When he returned to his office and compared the copies he had, he believed several were basically the same, the associate said.

He admitted to officials that he then used scissors to cut up three copies that night while at his office, they said. At first he had said he had either misplaced or unintentionally thrown them away.

When Archives officials contacted him after they realized documents were missing, he told them about the two copies he had and returned them, along with the handwritten notes he had taken, they said. He did not say anything about the three copies he had destroyed.

Clinton had asked Berger to review thousands of pages of documents related to the millennium terror plot and its aftermath for submission to the September 11th commission. While reviewing those documents, his lawyer said, Berger inadvertently took some classified documents and intentionally took handwritten notes he put together while reviewing the documents.

At the time the news of the Feds' investigation of Berger broke, when he was still denying any serious wrong-doing, the New York Daily News wrote:

The most important document Berger took was a "highly classified" assessment, written by former National Security Council aide Richard Clarke, on Clinton administration counter-terror efforts, sources said.

It included recommendations for improving efforts to thwart extremists, and one source characterized the report, stored at the National Archives in Washington, as critical of former President Bill Clinton's handling of the Millennium plots in 1999.

Berger admits he also took the notes he wrote from other documents he inspected - a violation of Archives policies - while vetting thousands of pages to be given to the 9/11 commission, his lawyer said.

An Archives staffer reported seeing the papers sticking out of a leg of Berger's pants, saying "it could have been white socks, except that [Berger] was wearing a dark suit," according to a government source.

Other reports had Berger also filling his pockets and jacket.

...Berger's attorney, Lanny Breuer, insists his client took the documents "inadvertently," and called claims that he stuffed papers in his socks "false and ridiculous" in an interview on CNN's "Wolf Blitzer Reports."

That line from the Archives staffer about the white socks and dark suit is priceless.

Today, NewsMax learned that "sentencing for former Clinton National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, who pled guilty in April to stealing and destroying top secret terrorism documents from the National Archives, has been delayed."

The Justice Department gave no explanation as to why he will not be sentenced until September. Calls made to Berger's lawyer, Washington, D.C. attorney Lanny Breuer, went unreturned.

Isn't it funny how the MSM have been on a three day feeding frenzy over Karl Rove's involvement in the Valerie Plame/ Joe Wilson case, while they gave only minimal attention to the Berger crime?

Dems are definitely in full drool mode. Kerry's "Fire Rove Now" petition is just one example. He wrote, "In the interests of national security, President Bush should fire Karl Rove."

This is laughable.

According to Kerry and the libs, Rove put our national security at risk even though it appears that he broke no laws.

Sandy Berger, on the other hand, admits to lying and destroying copies of classified documents that he smuggled out of the National Archives.

Do the libs think Berger endangered our national security? Of course not.

It's so ironic that Kerry is leading the lynch mob to get Rove.

He didn't get bent out of shape or start a petition when Berger, his adviser on foreign policy and national security during his failed presidential campaign, was "sloppy" with classifed information.

When Berger resigned from the campaign amid the scandal, Kerry issued a statement calling Berger a "friend" who has "tirelessly served this nation with honor and distinction."

There's nothing honorable about smuggling classified documents out of the National Archives, cutting them up with scissors, and then lying to authorities.

In terms of our national security, how can anyone begin to put Rove's comment about a desk-bound employee of the CIA in the same category with Berger's theft and destruction of sensitive documents?

Sloppy Berger

""

By MARK SHERMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former national security adviser Sandy Berger will plead guilty to taking classified documents from the National Archives, the Justice Department said Thursday.

Berger, who served in the Clinton administration, will enter the plea Friday in U.S. District Court in Washington, said Justice spokesman Bryan Sierra.

The plea agreement, if accepted by a judge, ends a bizarre episode in which the man who once had access to the government's most sensitive intelligence was accused of sneaking documents out of the Archives in his clothing...

He said he was reviewing the materials to help determine which Clinton administration documents to provide to the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. He called the episode "an honest mistake," and denied criminal wrongdoing.

Berger and his lawyer, Lanny Breuer, have said Berger knowingly removed the handwritten notes by placing them in his jacket and pants and he inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio.

He returned most of the documents, but 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.

"Mr. Berger has cooperated fully with the Department of Justice and is pleased that a resolution appears very near," Breuer said Thursday.

The charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material is a misdemeanor that carries a maximum sentence of a year in prison and up to a $100,000 fine.

However, a federal law enforcement official said a plea agreement calls for Berger to serve no jail time but to pay a $10,000 fine, surrender his security clearance for three years and cooperate with investigators. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the pending court proceeding. A judge must approve the agreement...

Former President Clinton was among Democrats who questioned the timing of the disclosure of the Berger probe, three days before the release of the final Sept. 11 commission report. The commission, writing just three months before the 2004 presidential election, detailed failures of both the Clinton and Bush administrations.
______________________________

Poor sloppy Sandy. Removing classified documents, stuffing notes in his pants, failing to return all of the drafts he "borrowed"--it could happen to anyone.

For three years Sandy won't have security clearance, surrendering his access to classified government materials. It'll will be tough for him to manage without that privilege.

I suppose he could find someone else with security clearance to smuggle out classified documents for him, as an "honest mistake" of course.