Sandy Berger: Admitted Thief
msn.com, April 1, 2005
LINKOne of the scandals that hurt the Kerry Campaign last summer involved the theft of classified documents from the National Archives by Kerry Advisor (and former Clinton National Security Advisor) Sandy Berger. Now Berger has pled guilty and admitted that he lied about what happened:
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. . . .
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.
Whatever it was that Berger stole and destroyed, it's fair to assume that it reflected badly on the Clinton Administration's -- and perhaps on Berger's -- anti-terrorism efforts, and that Berger thought it was bad enough that he was willing to commit a crime rather than see it made public.
Nonetheless, Berger has gotten off pretty light in exchange for his guilty plea: A $10,000 fine and a loss of his security clearance until 2008 -- coincidentally, leaving him free to take a job in a new Democratic administration should one be elected that year.
Why did Berger commit the crime? It's pretty easy to guess. Why did the Justice Department let him off so easily? That's harder to say.
It seems that the big boys play by a different set of rules. Or is Berger cooperating in a further investigation? We'll see.
Former Clinton Aide Pleads Guilty to Taking Classified DocsFox News, Sunday, April 03, 2005
LINKWASHINGTON - For months, he called it an honest mistake.
But on Friday, Sandy Berger (search) pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in federal court. Berger, who served as President Clinton's national security adviser, is acknowledging that it wasn't an honest mistake and that he intentionally took and destroyed copies of classified documents from the National Archives (search) and cut them up with scissors.
Berger acknowledged to U.S. Magistrate Deborah Robinson that he intentionally took and deliberately destroyed three copies of the same document dealing with terror threats during the 2000 millennium (search) celebration. He then lied about it to Archives staff when they told him the documents were missing.
"Guilty, your honor," Berger responded when asked how he pleaded.
Robinson did not ask Berger why he cut up the materials and threw them away at the Washington office of his Stonebridge International consulting firm. Berger, accompanied by his wife, Susan, did not offer an explanation when he addressed reporters outside the federal courthouse following the hearing.
"It was a mistake and it was wrong," he said, refusing to answer questions.
It's part of a plea agreement between Berger - who still claims he hasn't done anything criminally wrong - and the Justice Department so he doesn't get jail time.
Noel Hillman, chief of the Justice Department's public integrity section, would not discuss Berger's motivation, but said the former national security adviser understood the rules governing the handling of classified materials. Berger only had copies of documents; all of the originals remain in the government's possession, Hillman said.
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.
However, under a plea agreement that Robinson must accept, instead of jail, Berger would pay a $10,000 fine, surrender his security clearance for three years and cooperate with investigators. Security clearance allows access to classified government materials.
Berger was released and sentencing was set for July 8.
After his court appearance, Berger told reporters that he "excerised poor judgement" and "deeply regretted it." He said his motivation was to help himself and others prepare for their appearance before the commission probing the events surrounding the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
The U.S. District Court appearance was the culmination of a bizarre episode in which the man who once had access to the government's most sensitive intelligence was accused of sneaking documents out of the Archives, which houses the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and other cherished and top-secret documents.
The Bush administration disclosed the investigation in July, just days before the Sept. 11 commission issued its final report. Democrats claimed the White House was using Berger to deflect attention from the harsh findings, with their potential for damaging President Bush's re-election prospects.
After news of the probe surfaced, Berger admitted that twice during 2003, he knowingly removed classified documents regarding the government's anti-terror efforts and notes from the National Archives Annex in College Park, Md., by putting the papers in his jacket, his pants and in a leather case. That's a misdemeanor that can bring a maximum sentence of a year in prison and a $100,000 fine.
He said he was reviewing the materials to help determine which Clinton administration documents to provide to the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks. He called the episode "an honest mistake" and said he "deeply regrets" taking the material.
According to a statement released by the Justice Department on Friday, Berger took the documents to his office in Washington, where he destroyed three of the copies. Soon after he visited the Archives in October 2003, building officials discovered that documents were missing and, two days later, contacted Berger.
Initially, Berger did not tell the Archives staff that he had taken the documents but later that night told Archives staff that he had "accidentally misfiled" two of them, according to the Justice Department. The next day, he returned to Archives staff the two remaining copies of the five documents he had taken during the September and October visits. Each of the five copies of the document was then given to the Sept. 11 commission.
"In his plea, Berger also admitted that he concealed and removed his handwritten notes from the Archives prior to a classification review, in violation of Archives rules and procedures," reads the DOJ statement. "Those notes have been returned to the government."
But still missing are drafts of a sensitive after-action report on the Clinton administration's response to a failed terror plot to blow up the Los Angeles International Airport during December 1999, otherwise known as "the Millennium plot."
One source told FOX News that the report was critical of how the Clinton administration handled Al Qaeda threats to the U.S. homeland and that the missing report made security recommendations that were never implemented.
The Associated Press first reported in July that the Justice Department was investigating Berger for incidents at the Archives the previous fall. The disclosure prompted Berger to step down as an adviser to the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.
Clinton was among Democrats who questioned the timing of the disclosure of the Berger probe, three days before the release of the final Sept. 11 commission report. The commission, writing three months before the 2004 presidential election, detailed failures of both the Clinton and Bush administrations.
Clinton was among the Democrats who questioned the timing of the disclosure of the Berger probe three days before the release of the Sept. 11 report. Leaders of the Sept. 11 commission (search) said they were able to get every key document needed to complete their report.
FOX News' Bret Baier, Anna Persky and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Berger Will Plead Guilty To Taking Classified Paper By John F. Harris and Allan Lengel, Washington Post, April 1, 2005
LINKSamuel 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.
Sandy Berger Probed Over Terror Memos Fox News, Tuesday, July 20, 2004
WASHINGTON - Former President Clinton's national security adviser is under criminal investigation for taking highly classified terrorism documents that should have been turned over to the independent commission probing the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, FOX News has confirmed.
Sandy Berger (search) is under scrutiny by the Justice Department (search) following the disappearance of documents he was reviewing at the National Archives.
Berger's home and office were searched earlier this year by FBI (search) agents armed with warrants after the former Clinton adviser voluntarily returned some sensitive documents to the National Archives (search) and admitted he also removed handwritten notes he had made while reviewing the sensitive documents.
However, some drafts of a sensitive after-action report on the Clinton administration's handling of Al Qaeda terror threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration are still missing, officials and lawyers said. Officials said the missing documents also identified America's terror vulnerabilities at airports to seaports.
• Click to read Berger's testimony before the Sept. 11 commission (pdf file).
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 deeply regret the sloppiness involved, but I had no intention of withholding documents from the commission, and to the contrary, to my knowledge, every document requested by the commission from the Clinton administration was produced," Berger said in a statement.
There are laws strictly governing the handling of classified information, including prohibiting unauthorized removal or release of such information.
Lanny Breuer, one of Berger's attorneys, said his client had offered to cooperate fully with the investigation but had not yet been interviewed by the FBI or prosecutors.
Berger served as Clinton's national security adviser for all of the president's second term and most recently has been informally advising Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Clinton asked Berger last year to review and select the administration documents that would be turned over to the Sept. 11 commission.
Late Tuesday, Berger announced that he would no longer aid Kerry's presidential bid, saying he didn't want to diminish the work of the Sept. 11 commission.
"Mr. Berger does not want any issue surrounding the 9/11 commission to be used for partisan purposes. With that in mind he has decided to step aside as an informal adviser to the Kerry campaign until this matter is resolved," Breuer said.
Deputy Attorney General James Comey told reporters Tuesday he could not comment on the Berger investigation but did address the general issue of mishandling classified documents.
"As a general matter, we take issues of classified information very seriously," Comey said in response to a reporter's question about the Berger bind, adding that the department has prosecuted and sought administrative sanctions against people for mishandling classified information.
"It's our lifeblood, those secrets," Comey continued. "It's against the law for anyone to intentionally mishandle classified documents either by taking it to give to somebody else or by mishandling it in a way that is outside the government regulations."
'Inadvertent' Action?
The FBI searches of Berger's home and office occurred after National Archives employees said they believed they witnessed Berger placing documents in his clothing while reviewing sensitive Clinton administration papers and that some documents were missing.
Berger said he returned some classified documents that he found in his office and all of the handwritten notes he had taken from the secure room, but could not locate two or three copies of the millennium terror report.
"In the course of reviewing over several days thousands of pages of documents on behalf of the Clinton administration in connection with requests by the Sept. 11 commission, I inadvertently took a few documents from the Archives," Berger said.
"When I was informed by the Archives that there were documents missing, I immediately returned everything I had except for a few documents that I apparently had accidentally discarded."
Breuer said Berger believed he was looking at copies of the classified documents, not originals.
Government and congressional officials said no decision has been made on whether Berger should face criminal charges.
Although lawmakers didn't want to make a judgment call on Berger's fate until all the facts are known, they agreed that the situation doesn't look good for Berger, or even for Kerry.
"There's an ethic here -- that is of strict discipline, of not letting the fact you're working on a political campaign start to color your actions when it comes to national security," Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., told FOX News on Tuesday.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., called the news "surprising" and said that "unless we learn otherwise, I have to assume that what Sandy said was right -- that any removal of documents was inadvertent. But it is serious."
Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., said, "we need more information -- obviously the timing of it is not good" for Kerry.
"From now on, until the election, everything like this will have a spotlight put on it, examined very carefully," Lott continued.
More 'Innocent Than It Looks?'
David Gergen, who was an adviser to Clinton and worked with Berger for a time in the White House, said Tuesday, "I think it's more innocent than it looks."
"I have known Sandy Berger for a long time," Gergen said in a television interview. "He would never do anything to compromise the security of the United States." Gergen said he thought that "it is suspicious" that word of the investigation of Berger would emerge just as the Sept. 11 commission is about to release its report, since "this investigation started months ago."
Berger testified publicly at one of the commission's hearings about the Clinton administration's approach to fighting terrorism.
Berger had ordered his counterterrorism adviser, Richard Clarke, in early 2000 to write the after-action report and has publicly spoken about how the review brought to the forefront the realization that Al Qaeda had reached America's shores and required more attention.
The missing documents involve two or three draft versions of the report as it was being refined by the Clinton administration. The Archives is believed to have copies of some of the missing documents.
In the FBI search of his office, Berger also was found in possession of a small number of classified note cards containing his handwritten notes from the Middle East peace talks during the 1990s, but those are not a focal point of the current criminal probe, according to officials and lawyers.
Breuer said the Archives staff first raised concerns with Berger during an Oct. 2 review of documents that at least one copy of the post-millennium report he had reviewed earlier was missing. Berger was given a second copy that day, Breuer said.
Officials said Archive staff specially marked the documents and when the new copy and others disappeared, Archive officials called Clinton attorney Bruce Lindsey.
Berger immediately returned all the notes he had taken, and conducted a search and located two copies of the classified documents on a messy desk in his office, Breuer said. An Archives official came to Berger's home to collect those documents but Berger couldn't locate the other missing copies, the lawyer said.
Breuer said Berger was allowed to take handwritten notes but also knew that taking his own notes out of the secure reading room was a "technical violation of Archive procedures, but it is not all clear to us this represents a violation of the law."
Justice officials have informed the Sept. 11 commission of the Berger incident and the nature of the documents in case commissioners had any concerns, officials said. The commission is expected to release its final report on Thursday.
FOX News' Major Garrett, Liza Porteus, Anna Stolley and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Sandy Berger's Heavy LiftingSandy Berger: Biography and Theft ChargesUS Department of Justice
