Hook Dem
01-16-2005, 07:23 PM
Sandy Burglar?
Yahoo News ^ <http://biz.yahoo.com/ibd/050113/issues01_1.html> | 1/13/04
Sandy Burglar?
Thursday January 13, 7:00 pm ET
Ibd
Scandal: Anyone remember Sandy Berger? To the media, the former national security adviser who might have lifted sensitive documents is a forgotten man. Not entirely forgotten, though. A couple of media outlets -- the New York Post and Fox News -- say the criminal probe of the Berger case is in front of a federal grand jury. But then, no one would ever mistake the Post or Fox with being part of the establishment media.
As Washington scandals go, the Berger case had a short shelf life. It was in the news briefly last summer, when word spread that authorities were looking into the possibility that the former Clinton aide (and candidate for a top post in a John Kerry administration) walked out of the National Archives with top-secret documents.
Even more odd were allegations he stuffed some of the documents in his socks, and maybe his trousers. Odd, because Berger admitted to taking 40 to 50 top-secret documents, calling it an "honest mistake." He's also said he mistakenly destroyed some of them.
Could be. Honest mistakes are common. But it appears that Berger was trying to cover up his record and that of his former boss. Some of the documents said to be missing are drafts concluding it was just luck the U.S. avoided direct terror attacks in 2000, Clinton's last year in the White House. In testimony in front of Congress, Berger claimed "we thwarted" attacks.
Berger might also have made off with a draft showing he rejected a January 2000 attack on an al-Qaida camp. It's also known that he wrote "No" in the margin of a memo on a plan to capture Osama bin Laden.
Was he still trolling for that paper when he became an unwelcome guest at the National Archives, where he went over documents in preparation for the 9-11 panel hearings?
Last summer's transgressions, if true, wouldn't be Berger's only loose play with federal documents. As we noted in July, Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., says the National Archives incident was the second documented case of Berger mishandling classified information.
The first was in 1999, when Weldon says he sent an advance copy of a security report to Berger for review, only to have Berger pre-release information to put a "White House spin on what was still a classified document."
We realize that since Berger isn't a Republican, this matter is of little interest to the media elite. The grand jury is said to be moving ahead, however, and has already questioned another former Clinton aide, Bruce Lindsey. We trust the Post and Fox will stay on it.
Yahoo News ^ <http://biz.yahoo.com/ibd/050113/issues01_1.html> | 1/13/04
Sandy Burglar?
Thursday January 13, 7:00 pm ET
Ibd
Scandal: Anyone remember Sandy Berger? To the media, the former national security adviser who might have lifted sensitive documents is a forgotten man. Not entirely forgotten, though. A couple of media outlets -- the New York Post and Fox News -- say the criminal probe of the Berger case is in front of a federal grand jury. But then, no one would ever mistake the Post or Fox with being part of the establishment media.
As Washington scandals go, the Berger case had a short shelf life. It was in the news briefly last summer, when word spread that authorities were looking into the possibility that the former Clinton aide (and candidate for a top post in a John Kerry administration) walked out of the National Archives with top-secret documents.
Even more odd were allegations he stuffed some of the documents in his socks, and maybe his trousers. Odd, because Berger admitted to taking 40 to 50 top-secret documents, calling it an "honest mistake." He's also said he mistakenly destroyed some of them.
Could be. Honest mistakes are common. But it appears that Berger was trying to cover up his record and that of his former boss. Some of the documents said to be missing are drafts concluding it was just luck the U.S. avoided direct terror attacks in 2000, Clinton's last year in the White House. In testimony in front of Congress, Berger claimed "we thwarted" attacks.
Berger might also have made off with a draft showing he rejected a January 2000 attack on an al-Qaida camp. It's also known that he wrote "No" in the margin of a memo on a plan to capture Osama bin Laden.
Was he still trolling for that paper when he became an unwelcome guest at the National Archives, where he went over documents in preparation for the 9-11 panel hearings?
Last summer's transgressions, if true, wouldn't be Berger's only loose play with federal documents. As we noted in July, Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., says the National Archives incident was the second documented case of Berger mishandling classified information.
The first was in 1999, when Weldon says he sent an advance copy of a security report to Berger for review, only to have Berger pre-release information to put a "White House spin on what was still a classified document."
We realize that since Berger isn't a Republican, this matter is of little interest to the media elite. The grand jury is said to be moving ahead, however, and has already questioned another former Clinton aide, Bruce Lindsey. We trust the Post and Fox will stay on it.