RADIO TIDBITS

John Gibson was whining about all negative e-mail he got for having interviewed Sandy Berger. One common thread of the complainers was the old smear that Berger stole documents from the National Archives that would've put the Clinton Administration in a very poor light in relation to the 9-11 attacks.


Even the Wall Street Journal has acknowledged that this claim about Berger is FALSE:

Berger's Plea
Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: Apr 6, 2005. pg. A.10

So we called Justice Department Public Integrity chief prosecutor Noel Hillman, who assured us that Mr. Berger did not deny any documents to history. "There is no evidence that he intended to destroy originals," said Mr. Hillman. "There is no evidence that he did destroy originals. We have objectively and affirmatively confirmed that the contents of all the five documents at issue exist today and were made available to the 9/11 Commission."

The Berger File
Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: Apr 8, 2005. pg. A.12

Some people won't let a bad conspiracy theory go. We're referring to those who loudly assert that former NSC adviser Sandy Berger was trying to protect the Clinton Administration when he illegally removed copies of sensitive documents from the National Archives in late 2003.

On Wednesday, we quoted Justice Department prosecutor Noel Hillman that no original documents were destroyed, and that the contents of all five at issue still exist and were made available to the 9/11 Commission. But that point didn't register with some readers, who continue to suggest a vast, well, apparently a vast left- and right- wing conspiracy. The Washington Times, the Rocky Mountain News and former Clintonite Dick Morris have also been peddling dark suspicions based on misinformation.
The confusion seems to stem from the mistaken idea that there were handwritten notes by various Clinton Administration officials in the margins of these documents, which Mr. Berger may have been able to destroy. But that's simply an "urban myth," prosecutor Hillman tells us, based on a leak last July that was "so inaccurate as to be laughable." In fact, the five iterations of the anti-terror "after- action" report at issue in the case were printed out from a hard drive at the Archives and have no notations at all.

"Those documents, emphatically, without doubt -- I reviewed them myself -- don't have notations on them," Mr. Hillman tells us. Further, "there is no evidence after comprehensive investigation to suggest he took anything other than the five documents at issue and they didn't have notes." Mr. Berger's sentencing is scheduled for July, and Mr. Hillman assures us Justice's sentencing memo will lay out the facts and "make sure Mr. Berger explains what he did and why he did it." Meanwhile, conservatives don't do themselves any credit when they are as impervious to facts as the loony left.