SANDY BERGER???

The wingnuts are foaming again about Sandy Berger, Clinton's National Security Advisor. Apparently, AP just received the National Archives inspector general's Nov. 4, 2005, report on the matter through an FOIA request. So far, I've only found a report in one paper, the Boston Globe. [UPDATE: I found more papers, including the NYT, when I searched on "Berger" instead of "Sandy Berger".]


(from Lexis-Nexis)

The Boston Globe

December 21, 2006 Thursday
THIRD EDITION

SECTION: NATIONAL; Pg. A11

LENGTH: 328 words

HEADLINE: Watchdog says Berger hid classified papers

WASHINGTON - 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 Ninth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW so that 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 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 wrote in a Nov. 4, 2005, report.

After Archives officials confronted him and 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, Berger initially said he had removed them by mistake.

An 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," but Berger told investigators he was pulling up his socks, which Berger said "frequently fall down."

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

But 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.

Berger's lawyer, Lanny Breuer, said in a statement yesterday that Berger "considers this matter closed."

He also said the Justice Department affirmed that Berger had no intent to hide the contents.

This is the AP article:

Associated Press Online

December 21, 2006 Thursday 4:15 AM GMT

SECTION: WASHINGTON DATELINE

LENGTH: 672 words

HEADLINE: Report Says Berger Hid Archive Documents

BYLINE: By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

BODY:


President Clinton's national security adviser removed classified documents from the National Archives, hid them under a construction trailer and later tried to find the trash collector to retrieve them, the agency's internal watchdog said Wednesday.

The report was issued more than a year after Sandy Berger pleaded guilty and received a criminal sentence for removing the documents.

Berger took the documents in the fall of 2003 while working to prepare himself and Clinton administration witnesses for testimony to the Sept. 11 commission. Berger was authorized as the Clinton administration's representative to make sure the commission got the correct classified materials.

Berger's lawyer, Lanny Breuer, said in a statement that the contents of all the documents exist today and were made available to the commission.

But Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., outgoing chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, said he's not convinced that the Archives can account for all the documents taken by Berger. Davis said working papers of National Security Council staff members are not inventoried by the Archives.

"There is absolutely no way to determine if Berger swiped any of these original documents. Consequently, there is no way to ever know if the 9/11 Commission received all required materials," Davis said.

Berger pleaded guilty to unlawfully removing and retaining classified documents. He was fined $50,000, ordered to perform 100 hours of community service and was barred from access to classified material for three years.

Officials told The Associated Press at the time of the thefts that the documents were highly classified and included critical assessments about the Clinton administration's handling of the millennium terror threats as well as identification of America's terror vulnerabilities at airports and seaports.

Inspector General Paul Brachfeld reported that National Archives employees spotted Berger bending down and fiddling with something white around his ankles.

The employees did not feel at the time there was enough information to confront someone of Berger's stature, the report said.

Later, when Berger was confronted by Archives officials about the missing documents, he lied by saying he did not take them, the report said.

Brachfeld's report included an investigator's notes, taken during an interview with Berger. The notes dramatically described Berger's removal of documents during an Oct. 2, 2003, visit to the Archives.

Berger took a break to go outside without an escort while it was dark. He had taken four documents in his pockets.

"He headed toward a construction area. ... Mr. Berger looked up and down the street, up into the windows of the Archives and the DOJ (Department of Justice), and did not see anyone," the interview notes said.

He then slid the documents under a construction trailer, according to the inspector general. Berger acknowledged that he later retrieved the documents from the construction area and returned with them to his office.

"He was aware of the risk he was taking," the inspector general's notes said. Berger then returned to the Archives building without fearing the documents would slip out of his pockets or that staff would notice that his pockets were bulging.

The notes said Berger had not been aware that Archives staff had been tracking the documents he was provided because of earlier suspicions from previous visits that he was removing materials. Also, the employees had made copies of some documents.

In October 2003, the report said, an Archives official called Berger to discuss missing documents from his visit two days earlier. The investigator's notes said, "Mr. Berger panicked because he realized he was caught."

The notes said that Berger had "destroyed, cut into small pieces, three of the four documents. These were put in the trash."

After the trash had been picked up, Berger "tried to find the trash collector but had no luck," the notes said.

Significant portions of the inspector general's report were redacted to protect privacy or national security.