Berger to plead guilty

hmmm, andy, why isn't this a felony? it always appeared to meet the "new moon standard."

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/03/31/berger.plea.ap/index.html

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Sandy Berger to plead guilty on documents charge


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

Berger is expected to appear in federal court in Washington on Friday, said Justice spokesman Bryan Sierra.

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.

The former Clinton administration official previously acknowledged he removed from the National Archives copies of documents about the government's anti-terror efforts and notes that he took on those documents.

He said he was reviewing the materials to help determine which Clinton administration documents to provide to the independent commission investigating the September 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 inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio. He returned most of the documents, but some still are missing.

The materials related to a 2000 report on how government reacted to the terror threat prior to the millennium celebrations.

Berger stepped down as an adviser to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's campaign last July after The Associated Press reported that the Justice Department was investigating the matter.

Many Democrats, including former President Clinton, suggested politics were behind disclosure of the probe only days before the release of the September 11 commission report, which Republicans feared would be a blow to President Bush's re-election campaign.

 

i always thought it was whitie-tighties. a tighty-whitey sounds like a particularly in-demand gay preppie...

 

here's more from the WaPo:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16706-2005Mar31.html

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Berger Will Plead Guilty To Taking Classified Paper

By John F. Harris and Allan Lengel
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, April 1, 2005; Page A01

Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, a former White House national security adviser, plans to plead guilty to a misdemeanor, and will acknowledge intentionally removing and destroying copies of a classified document about the Clinton administration's record on terrorism.

Berger's plea agreement, which was described yesterday by his advisers and was confirmed by Justice Department officials, will have one of former president Bill Clinton's most influential advisers and one of the Democratic Party's leading foreign policy advisers in a federal court this afternoon.

The deal's terms make clear that Berger spoke falsely last summer in public claims that in 2003 he twice inadvertently walked off with copies of a classified document during visits to the National Archives, then later lost them.

He described the episode last summer as "an honest mistake." Yesterday, a Berger associate who declined to be identified by name but was speaking with Berger's permission said: "He recognizes what he did was wrong. . . . It was not inadvertent."

Under terms negotiated by Berger's attorneys and the Justice Department, he has agreed to pay a $10,000 fine and accept a three-year suspension of his national security clearance. These terms must be accepted by a judge before they are final, but Berger's associates said yesterday he believes that closure is near on what has been an embarrassing episode during which he repeatedly misled people about what happened during two visits to the National Archives in September and October 2003.

Lanny Breuer, Berger's attorney, said in a statement: "Mr. Berger has cooperated fully with the Department of Justice and is pleased that a resolution appears very near. He accepts complete responsibility for his actions, and regrets the mistakes he made during his review of documents at the National Archives."

The terms of Berger's agreement required him to acknowledge to the Justice Department the circumstances of the episode. Rather than misplacing or unintentionally throwing away three of the five copies he took from the archives, as the former national security adviser earlier maintained, he shredded them with a pair of scissors late one evening at the downtown offices of his international consulting business.

The document, written by former National Security Council terrorism expert Richard A. Clarke, was an "after-action review" prepared in early 2000 detailing the administration's actions to thwart terrorist attacks during the millennium celebration. It contained considerable discussion about the administration's awareness of the rising threat of attacks on U.S. soil.

Archives officials have said previously that Berger had copies only, and that no original documents were lost. It remains unclear whether Berger knew that, or why he destroyed three versions of a document but left two other versions intact. Officials have said the five versions were largely similar, but contained slight variations as the after-action report moved around different agencies of the executive branch.

National Archives officials almost immediately suspected that Berger had removed materials after his Oct. 2, 2003, visit. They called Bruce R. Lindsey, a former White House lawyer and Clinton's liaison to the archives to complain. Lindsey, sources said, called Berger, who soon acknowledged to archives officials that he had removed documents -- by accident, he told them -- and returned notes that he made, as well as the two documents he had not destroyed.

A criminal investigation, which eventually brought witnesses before a grand jury, was soon underway. The probe came to light last July, prompting Berger's resignation as a senior foreign policy adviser to 2004 Democratic nominee John F. Kerry.

Berger's archives visit occurred as he was reviewing materials as a designated representative of the Clinton administration to the national commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The question of what Clinton knew and did about the emerging al Qaeda threat before leaving office in January 2001 was acutely sensitive, as suggested by Berger's determination to spend hours poring over the Clarke report before his testimony.

The Berger associate authorized to speak with reporters described the chronology the former national security chief gave to the Justice Department in his negotiations with the Justice Department. On Sept. 2, 2003, the associate said, Berger put a copy of the Clarke report in his suit jacket. He did not put it in his socks or underwear, as was alleged by some Republicans last summer. On Oct. 2, 2003, he again spent hours at the archives and took four more versions of the document. Back in his office, he studied them in detail, realized they were largely identical, and took the scissors to three of the copies, the associate said.

Berger friends regarded the agreement as fair, given the circumstances, and Breuer's statement praised the "professionalism" of the lawyers he worked with at the Justice Department.

 

there were plenty of those when this story first broke last year, just as there were plenty defending the clinton admin's response to terrorism. Berger stole, and destroyed, classified documents as part of a politically motivated coverup, and did so because there were some facts out there that were so damning, he was willing to break the law to make sure the public never saw them. it'd be nice to see some of the clinton aplogistas on this board own up to that fact.

 

as soon as an indictment is returned, or not, i'll be happy to weigh in on that subject again. rest assured, i've book marked that thread and noted many of the comments therein.

 

berger shredded the copies, making it highly unlikely he knew there were others. and his punishment is less severe that martha stewart's. do you feel justice has been served?