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The flower of liberal punditry, Air America, didn’t know what was going on in their own backyard with regard to their radio network. And now John Kerry’s foreign policy czar, Sandy Berger (or Sandy Burglar, per Rush Limbaugh), is caught sneaking classified documents out in his socks.
Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed the handwritten notes by placing them in his jacket, pants and socks, and also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio.
Are these the kind of people who should be running our country?
#1
#2> stuffing his own hand written notes in his socks.
Can you provide a link to any reports that the documents he took were his own hand-written notes? And would you say it's all right for him to steal classified documents that were in his own handwriting?
#3From Fox News:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,126249,00.html
"Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed the handwritten notes by placing them in his jacket, pants and socks, and also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio."
I wasn't aware of this, but a former National Security Advisor certainly should be, but the story reads to me that Berger was taking notes on the documents he was reviewing. That notetaking in the Archive is strictly prohibited. The notes that Berger allegedly removed from the Archive, it is a criminal investigation after all, were not originally part of the archive, but new notes that he took to prepare for 9/11 Comission testimony.
It is not correct or proper to do what Berger did. However, my point is that errors occur when people handle sensitive documents. People give documents, and statements, to reporters when it is not proper to do so. If this is what Berger did, then he should be appropriately disciplined. Maybe that will teach him to handle documents professionally.
From what I have read, I believe that Berger did not intentionally try to destroy evidence that would protect our country from further terrorist attack. News outlets are making political hay of the incident so they can run exclamation points in headlines again.
Documents Stolen!
Former Clinton Advisor Investigated!
#4Hi Tim,
You make a very interesting point. If I follow you correctly, you're suggesting that Berger made hand-written notes of classified documents, and removed only those notes. This is a very interesting way of looking at it, and I did some Google News research to look into it further.
From Fox News:
> Sandy Berger under scrutiny by the Justice Department following the disappearance of documents he was reviewing at the National Archives.
>
> Berger's home and office were searched earlier this year by FBI agents armed with warrants after the former Clinton adviser voluntarily returned some sensitive documents to the National Archives and admitted he also removed handwritten notes he had made while reviewing the sensitive documents.
From Worldnow:
> Berger, who was national security chief under President Clinton, acknowledges taking copies of the documents from the National Archives as he prepared for testimony before the 9/11 Commission. He also removed notes he took.
From the New Jersey Star-Ledger:
> Berger, a member of the Clinton administration who until Tuesday was an informal adviser to John Kerry's presidential campaign, has admitted removing documents from the National Archives while reviewing what records to submit to the commission studying the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Some of those documents are now missing.
So it appears that Berger did remove actual documents, in addition to hand-written notes.
#5Quite true. He allegedly removed both documents from the Archive and his own notes on documents he was reviewing. Both of these errors are possibly criminal acts. Of particular interest to investigators are the documents that Berger inadvertently (his word) destroyed.
On a related note, have you seen that the DNC has entered a Freedom of Information Act request on communication between Justice and the White House on this issue.
Apparantly, the DNC is claiming this news leak of a months old investigation is being used to drown out the 9/11 Commission report.
#6> the DNC is claiming this news leak of a months old investigation is being used to drown out the 9/11 Commission report.
There is a possibility that it may have been a Democrat who leaked it. From Kevin Drum, via Instapundit:
> I think it must have actually been a Democrat who leaked it. Frankly, if I were a Republican, I would have waited until around the last week of October or so. My guess is that some sharp Democratic operative figured out that this wasn't going to stay a secret forever and decided (correctly) that it was better to get it into the open now rather than later.
http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=5651&fcategory_desc=Under Reported
Dirty laundry is all over the political landscape.
Google Karl Rove and see what lovely stories are being told about him.
Let's not get caught up in the "Get Smart" laughs of a chubby Sandy Berger stuffing his own hand written notes in his socks. I'm still considering that story apocryphal. I know Fox News is crediting the statement to Berger's lawyer, but I still doubt the accuracy.
This smacks of election year hyperbole to me.