–Sebastian
I can’t tell if it is lack of information or bad reporting, but it seems to me that the important details of the Berger document stealing story aren’t accessible. (See for example The Seattle Times or ABC News). From what I can tell, Berger was supposed to be helping the 9-11 Commission get information on Clinton-era terrorism knowledge and actions. He removed from the National Archives five drafts of a document. He shredded with scissors three of the drafts. The 9-11 Commission said that they didn’t miss anything because of the theft. Mysteriously they said that before the investigation was complete and without seeing the documents which were taken.
The Seattle Times version says:
The document, written by former National Security Council terrorism expert Richard Clarke, was 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 only three of the five versions of a document. Officials have said the five versions contained slight variations as Clarke’s report moved around agencies of the executive branch.
Berger was reviewing materials as a 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-Qaida threat before leaving office in January 2001 was acutely sensitive, as suggested by Berger’s poring over the Clarke report before his testimony.
Unlike many major media versions of the story, it at least addresses some of the tricky issues, though it provides very little in the way of answers. The key questions are:
When he took them, did Berger know they were not originals?
If he did, were they the only accessible copies? This is important because in a large document depository (and the National Archives is one of the largest) destroying something out of the only well indexed or well organized copy set can be almost as effective as destroying normal originals if you are the only one who knows what you are looking for.
If the answer to both of the above questions is yes to the first and no to the second, what could Berger have hoped to accomplish? You don’t steal documents for no reason at all. You don’t destroy 3 of them just for fun. What was he trying to do?
Why did he shred with scissors (I only mention that part to emphasize the fact that such destruction could not possibly be inadvertant) three of the drafts?
What were the distinguishing characteristics of those drafts compared to the drafts he returned?
What were the differences in the drafts he took when compared to the original document, and why are they important?
A very odd situation all around.
The documents could have contained some variation of wording which would have been siezed upon by conservatives to pin the blame for 9/11 on Clinton. Berger saw this and decided to do the right thing by destroying them. Or perhaps these documents reference top secret material which would harm national security if more widely known. Again Berger did the right thing by destroying them. I can think of any number of benign reasons for Berger to do what he has done. This is a non-issue.
I’m surprised he wasn’t hit with a bigger hammer, Sebastian. Removal of classified documents from their proper container without authorization is pretty serious. If it was supportably accidental, that’s one thing, but this was demonstrably deliberate. Inability to account for said documents is only a little worse, mostly because even if he’d brought them back (instead of shredding) he wouldn’t be able to supply proof positive that the documents weren’t compromised.
At a minimum, he ought to have lost his clearance for all time. This is a little reminiscent of John Deutch’s escapades in that hey, what does one have to do to get their clearance yanked, anyway?
You obviously don’t get the whole concept of security clearance, National Archives, etc.
What, are you channeling Richard Nixon? Destroying government documents without permission is never, ever the right thing to do.
Slarti, I trust Berger. Given the fact that in the cultural wars conservatives have no sense of decency, nor practice restraint even when it harms our national security, I trust that Berger did the right thing.
What is the point of this post? To show that a Clinton administration offical may have violated security and should have gotten his clearance pulled? Fine. I don’t know if he did or nor or if he should or not, but let’s pretend that the absolute worst is true, and that Clinton was informed in some nebulous way about potential or possible Al Quaida plans but didn’t respond effectively enough, as seen by hindsight.. He still prevented the LA attack and he still bares no responsibility for 911. Also Berger’s behavior doesn’t excuse the Bush administration for under responding to the information they received about terrorist plans or for misinforming the public about their reasons for going to war.
I don’t think raising Berger issue now will cover up the report discussed by Edward on an earlier thread.
Neither do I, nor do I want it to. Two separate issues normally warrant two separate threads (at least).
Not sure what you mean by that, but he did plead guilty. Normally you don’t do that if you’re not nailed dead to rights.
Sure, a guy who’s stuffing classified documents down his trousers just oozes trustworthiness. So I can understand where you’re coming from, ken.
Given the relatively light punishment, I’ve got to assume that they couldn’t make a strong case without Berger’s cooperation. The cynic in me would speculate that there also may have been pressure from above to go easy to set a precedent for the treatment that current officials will receive when they’re out of power. Good thing I’m not cynical.
I’d think they could have gotten a lot of political mileage by making an example of him, if I were being cynical. According to the talking points, planning ahead hasn’t been a strong point for the Bush administration, but maybe it’s a selective thing.
Nope, I’m just back to being baffled. I can’t make any of this make a jot of sense.
He still prevented the LA attack and he still bares no responsibility for 911.
I didn’t know Clinton was the one who spotted the guy sweating profusely in his car waiting to cross into the U.S. into Canada; way to go Bill!!
Um, Clinton had nothing at all to do with preventing the LA attack. Nada. Zilch. Juan Cole got this one wrong, too.
From the AP:
Rather than the “honest mistake” he acknowledged last summer, Berger told Justice Department lawyers he intentionally took and deliberately destroyed three copies of the same document
One last comment about the Clinton/LA thing: I wrote about this nearly a year ago. I’d point you in that direction if you’re curious to know what I meant by what I said upthread; I really hate to just cut and paste the whole thing.
The part of the story that I don’t understand is how he could get by without giving a credible account of why he destroyed the documents as part of his allocution.
Good point, Dave. Why scissors? Can you imagine a government office not equipped with a paper shredder?
We don’t know that he hasn’t given a credible account of why he did it. The plea hasn’t been enter yet. I would guess at something personally embarrassing. But we may never know, or at least not know for a long time. Presumably the prosecution knows enough to be confident it doesn’t warrant a felony conviction, or at least that he can’t get one.
This is a non-issue.
You forgot “April Fools!” at the end, Ken–at least I hope you did.
There was never much to this story – Berger behaved like a moron, has finally admitted it and will pay the price. It got hype solely because it deflected heat at the time on Bush for his screw ups. Otherwise nobody would have cared much.
None of the stories indicate the status of Beger’s security clearance, and he has not been sentenced yet (max penalty is one year in jail and $100,000 fine). So there is no basis for saying he got off easy. I would bet that it is a certainty that his security clearance is gone (it should already be gone, but the guilty plea assures that).
We’ll see what the judge does with it at sentencing. The sentencing report would discuss the details that Sebastian seeks, but security concerns may prevent us from knowing those details.
As for Clinton/LAX milleniumm plots, there was a big increase in security (particularly at LAX itself) — just not at the particular border location that nabbed the explosives smuggler.
The real point is to contrast Clinton’s vigorous response (even though those measures were not the cause for thwarting the smuggler) to Bush’s non-response in the build up to 9/11 when there were similar warnings. Bush should be embarrassed if he wasn’t so busy lying about his non-response.
“Or perhaps these documents reference top secret material which would harm national security if more widely known. Again Berger did the right thing by destroying them. I can think of any number of benign reasons for Berger to do what he has done. This is a non-issue.”
Spoken like someone who has never had a security clearance and, therefore, has never been annually briefed on how, where and when to handle, copy and/or destroy classified documents. Clue: handled differently than your seven-year-old credit card statements.
It’s informative to know that Ken and Lily are okay with breaking the law. Atleast we can clearly see what kind of people we are up against.
Clinton’s vigorous response was to roust Muslims in cities across the US. This yielded nothing at all. So, yes, Clinton didn’t do nothing, but what he did do was wholly ineffectual. Not a discredit to Clinton
Juliette: this is what I’ve been trying to tell people. Documents are not classified for no reason, and security regulations aren’t simply guidelines. If I’d done what Berger did, I’d be looking at guaranteed prison time. Even if he’d signed the documents out of the building, bringing them home instead of to an approved container is a security violation. And if he doesn’t have courier papers, he can’t even transport them.
What will it take to get the Berger apologists to admit that what he did was a serious crime? First you all were denying that anything untoward took place and that it was all a Republican plot to embarass Clinton and deflect attention from Bush’s antiterrorist record. Now that the guy pleaded guilty to stealing documents from a secure installation, destroying them and lying to investigators about it, you’re saying no harm, no foul, Nixon was worse, he left behind copies of the documents he destroyed, &c &c. Sheesh.
Did the Justice Department deliver the verdict in their pants and socks? That would have been funny.
“I trust that Berger did the right thing.”
Cripes, ken. This is the same kind of blind loyalty you would rightly kick Bush apologists for. Just because Sandy plays for your home team doesn’t make him deserving of any of your trust. Trust me. He’s a politician. He was born to betray trust.
“Atleast we can clearly see what kind of people we are up against.”
Hi, smlook! Your attempts to inject every thread with vague Red vs Blue crusader rhetoric are, as ever, tedious and ill-advised.
Berger did the right thing by destroying them.
An astounding assertion. Ken, I bet you would favor Howard Dean getting into the Vermont documents he’s sequestered and destroying anything that might be used against him by the press before the courts release those documents, eh? Same thing for Kerry’s military records, too. In fact, let’s let every politician destroy stuff that might generate bad publicity before their documents are made public — or even if they’re just secretly archived. In fact, why keep official government records at all? After all, you never now when they might crop up or be taken out of context.
Agreed, sidereal. FWIW, I fully expected ken to come back with an “April Fools!”.
I didn’t say it was OK for Berger to break the law. I said that his misbehavior won’t, in my opinion, distract attention from Bush’s failures–and shouldn’t since Bush’s failures are a quantum jump worse. By the way there is an article in my local paper about another report. A study ordered by Sec. Rumsfield and done by the Rand Corp. includes a whole list of failures and shortcomings with the post-war planning. Nice counterpoint to the presidential commission report. Sorry, I don’t know how to do links.
The millenium plot bomber was caught by a US Customs agent who thought he was smuggling drugs. It had nothing to do with any meetings the NSA held.
Janet Reno under oath:
ROEMER: My time has just about run out. Just to clarify one point then. You think the decision made by the guard on the border to get Ressam coming into our country to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport then was somehow related to the frenetic…
RENO: No.
ROEMER: … active activity of the principals meeting?
RENO: No. I think she did that — I mean, I think that was just good police work, and it was a lucky break for us.
I think Berger is “born-again” so it doesn’t matter.
Remember, it is one’s character that determines level of responsibility…since he is a “born-again” folksy type, this is none of our consern.
Blofeld, I’ve covered all that. The Reno testimony is icing, if redundant.
Neodude, once again the snark is obscuring whatever point you might be attempting to make.
I think Berger is being picked on, when it is obvious he was only protecting the United States, to the best of his ability.
He is a moral and good man and has tried hard to protect America.
So any cynical political motives attributed to him, really show us how his political opponents are attempting to weaken our resolve and the spirit of America.
For Shame.
April Fools! Right?
I really don’t care about what his “cynical political motives” were nearly as much as that he swiped classified documents and shredded them. Breaking the law in the progress, but I guess that’s beside the point?
And really…nabbing someone who compromises secure documents and then destroys them is weaken[ing] the spirit of America? If so, let’s weaken away.
Berger was protecting America and it is a shame politicos are trying to spin this some other way.
HEY LOOK!!!
LESBIAN MUPPETS, ON A FARM, HOLDING SOMEONE’S FEEDING TUBES!!!
Yes, he was protecting America in much the same way that Nixon was: by getting rid of the evidence.
You know, if your rules for how someone should be treated regarding an action change based on the political persuasions involved, you aren’t holding a principled position. You’re just being kind of a jerk.
The rather liberal Tadlow Windsor III at Strange Doctrines is equally baffled by the line of argument that appears to have arisen here.
Mr. Windsor’s supposition (might not in fact be his; I’m probably being sloppy here but I’m not holding him to it) that perhaps Berger cut up the documents because they were copies doesn’t pass the laugh test. Berger, as former National Security Advisor, cannot have been ignorant of the rules regarding handling and destruction of classified documents. Once a document is entered into accountability, you cannot simply dispose of it. That would foil the entire purpose of having accountability rules. Berger, knowing this, has to be the owner of the ultimate poker face if he’s suggesting such a thing.
Slarti, you’re a killer straight man. Honestly, Neo was wielding a 2×4 with that last one. We should trust (sic) Berger about as much as we should trust (sic) anyone else within 50 miles of Washington, particularly those who would, say, release the name of an active undercover CIA agent to the press for political reasons, et c. Nothing enervates our politics and justice like partisan and ideological loyalty.
What could his motivation for cutting up copies possibly be? An overwhelming zeal for efficiency that demands the destruction of redundant information? Is there a test more sensitive to absurdity than the laugh test? The ‘are you insane’ test?
As I’ve said on numerous occasions, it’s almost impossible for me to distinguish Neo being funny from Neo being serious.
You know, it used to annoy me to no end when Marshall used that phrase, and it annoys me even more that he’s now got me doing it.
dmbeaster,
There was never much to this story – Berger behaved like a moron, has finally admitted it and will pay the price.
Sounds right. Hard not to be curious about his motive though.
A variant of the “laugh test” (in a slightly different domain) is the “gift test” — when planning a product, if you were to give it away, would anyone take it?
Many a start-up has failed the gift test.
Lesbian Muppets? Where???
Lesbian Muppets? Where???
Miss Piggy, of course.
Some notes @ War & Piece
Readers with clearances respond to Berger case. Earlier today, I asked for feedback about whether Sandy Berger’s behavior is as baffling to those with security clearances as it was to me. Several people responded, and a few have agreed to let me post their perspectives anonymously.
Update:
I heard on the news that the sentence was $10,000 and 3 year suspension of his security status. I don’t know how much his livelihood depended on security clearance, but the impact on him professionally has to be dramatic (and it should be). Still light sentence terms, which probably reflects the willingness to plea and the seriousness of the crime as shown on the sentencing report. The prosecutor probably requested similar terms — the whole thing looks like an amicable deal.
No matter how the situation was misused by Repubs (and it was), the guy committed a stupid crime about a serious matter. If the nature of the crime or the sensitivity of the documents had been greater, I imagine the punishment would have been greater.
Yomtov:
I completely agree, although we’ll never know. I would not believe the literal truth of his allocution either as its unverifiable, especially as to his subjective motives. He is admitting only as much as he has to admit and then in a manner that minimizes the harm of the admission.
In the NY Times, it was claimed that Berger wanted to compare two versions of a report to look for changes and that, since the work was tedious and long, he wanted to do it at home.
My guess is that when he was in the administration, the rules were less stringently applied. He probably thought no one would notice or care–and maybe that he was too important. He got caught,and people did care. Oops.
Sandy the Burglar
Martha Stewart lied to investigators about acts that fell short of the crime of “insider trading” — and spent five months in prison. Former Clinton National Security advisor Sandy Berger “stole, and destroyed, classified documents
Can I play too?
Misused, how?
Slartibartfast,
It appears Laura Rozen knows the folks who sent her the info. She withheld their names.
You’re going to have to give me a little more than that. Who sent Laura Rozen what info? And hey, how about a link or two?
sorry,
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001828.html
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001831.html
OK, this is just… odd. Stupid, unethical, probably illegal, and… odd. Every time I read the reports I feel like I’m reading Shakespeare translated into Latvian and then back into English by a Korean rice-farmer using VCR manuals as his dictionary. It makes no sense. It’s… odd.
I feel like I’m reading Shakespeare translated into Latvian and then back into English by a Korean rice-farmer using VCR manuals as his dictionary
Nice!
No matter how the situation was misused by Repubs a(and it was)
Misused, how?
Short refresher course, although I think you know the answer. At the time, the 9/11 commission was busy exposing Bush admin bad behavior in the build-up to 9/11, and the Bushies were busy with their usual dirty tricks to conceal their actions and perpetuate their legends. The Berger episode was therefore spun in the classic manner of “look, over there!” This included made up baloney about him putting doucments in his socks, and dark hints of a cover-up of Clinton misdeeds. And it got the attention that it did solely because of the desire to deflect attention.
Got it now?
My two cents is that Berger had drafts where he or someone else had handwritten stuff on them that he did not want to see the light of day. They were technically the same but the editing or commentary would have been embarassing.
Short refresher course, although I think you know the answer. At the time, the 9/11 commission was busy exposing Bush admin bad behavior in the build-up to 9/11
Hmm, funny how the Berger fiasco only rated about 4 sentences in Newsweek at the time. For comparison, the Valerir Plame deal got 8 pages in one Newsweek issue. and many, many other mentions in the run-up to the election. The current Berger story is on page 11 of the Chicago Trib, if you want to hunt for it. “look, over there”,indeed. Not to mention that the 9/11 commission devolved into theater, with Condi Rice testifying under oath in order to make it look like she was on trial for 9/11.
I don’t have a view on what Berger was thinking, since nothing I can think of makes the least sense. I do think that the idea that what he did was OK, let alone the right thing, is just crazy, and exactly the sort of partisan excusing of bad stuff that drives me crazy when done by conservatives. We can debate how bad his motives are likely to be –sloppiness and being used to being able to do what he wanted, compounded by the sudden realization that he had done something very dumb, which (in my experience) can lead people to do even dumber stuff just in the hopes of making their original dumbness go away, hoping that no one will be the wiser, a nefarious yet strangely incompetent coverup of something, whatever (and here I am, as I said, hampered by the fact that none of the explanations I can think of makes any sense at all). But the idea that ignoring the rules for classified documents, and then shredding those documents, is anything other than wrong is, to me, just nutty.
That conservatives might have misused the documents is not a good argument. First, the 9/11 commission was quite fair. Second, this is not just about the immediate use of these documents. The National Archives exist in part to preserve things for future historians, and if there was anything unique to these documents, shredding them is all the worse. We need to understand our government in order to have an informed view of it, and if these documents were necessary for that, or even would have helped some future historian make some minor yet interesting point, then shredding them is a sin against history. For this reason I very much hope that there was nothing unique in them.
Likewise, if this is or was being used to distract us from the problems of the Bush administration, the best remedy for that is to remember those problems, not to dismiss these. We can debate how wrong what Berger did was, but that it was wrong seems to me just obvious.
Don’t worry Sebastian, our brave and inquisative MSM will get the facts eventually. Remember, Tim Russert asked John Kerry about “Christmas in Cambodia” in January 2005.
Oh yeah, and by the way, Glenn Reynolds is a hack because he blogged a photocopy of the Congressional Record pages where Kerry testified about that xmas in ’68 where President Nixon was lying even though Nixon hadn’t been inaugurated yet.
Even though the 60 minutes memos could not be authenticated, most people cannot tell the difference between a typewritten document and one produced by Microsoft Word, so there is no reason for folks to believe their own lying eyes. The memos were fake but accurate. George Bush did not show up for his physical on Mother’s Day and therefore was a deserter, or at least AWOL ;^)
The documents could have contained some variation of wording which would have been siezed upon by conservatives to pin the blame for 9/11 on Clinton. Berger saw this and decided to do the right thing by destroying them.
For the record, even though I think Berger was stupid and committed a serious crime, I don’t think he meant to compromise national security. But that doesn’t excuse him because “he didn’t have bad intentions” or “the Bush admin are bad guys”.
“George Bush did not show up for his physical on Mother’s Day”
He also observed Mother’s Day as celebrated in Burkina Faso and Dhekelia and Surinam and …
I say throw the book at Berger. But a small paperback, not A la recherche du temps perdu, The Engraved In Marble Edition.
I say throw the book at Berger. But a small paperback, not A la recherche du temps perdu, The Engraved In Marble Edition.
I think that they are throwing the leaflet at him 🙂
But paper cuts can be very painful.
This is all so ridiculous.
He is your plausible explanation.
Berger was asked to prepare information to present tot he 911 commission. To do this, he needed to go back over the records. He had lost some levels of security clearance when he left his job, so the only way he could access the records was to go look at COPIES of the originals in a closed room. He thought this was stupid, because these were documents that he helped write at his own home less than two years earlier, and decided he wasn’t going to stick to the letter of the law – he was going to take what he needed out with him so he could read and prepare at his leisure and in a comfortable setting.
He cut out the excerpts that he needed from the larger documents, because he could not sneak the big documents out. They were copies, so he wasn’t destroying anything – it was all still on the originals.
He put the scraps in his pockets and wrapped the full pages around his calves, secured by his socks.
The republicans seized on it because it would help deflect the (justified)criticism of how poorly Condi did in Bergers place. They descibed it as stuffing the documents in his pants instead of pockets and calves because it gave it an air of perversion and made them twitter like little school girls.
He is getting a smack on the wrist over this because a) he did not destroy any originals, b) it was kind of stupid to not let him take documents he himself had written and c)not only was he no security threat, but he was using the documents to present information to the congress about how to improve national security.
Is that good enough?
The moment that noting a crime has taken place ascends to misdirection, well, you’ve just got to get your head out of the dark place. Get it: this guy walked out of the National Archives with classified documents, which is a clear violation of the law. No one on the right made him do that; he did it all on his own.
I think it’s not a stretch to suggest that you have no idea what you’re talking about. Accessing copies of classified documents requires the same level of clearance as accessing the documents themselves.
Again, you have no idea of what you’re talking about. As former NSA, Berger knew that he was accountable for those documents he destroyed. But even assuming he was this stupid, he ought to be able to show that what he cut and pasted (which, incidentally, would have to form a new document entered into accountability) wound up back inside a classified container.
Oops, always a mistake.
Once more, you have no idea what you’re suggesting. These are not simply magazines from which one can cut and paste, these are documents, each with a numerical identifier. One cannot simply clip and dispose of such things.
Wishful thinking. No, those who actually have a clue seized upon this as a crime, which is what it was. Whether the crime was committed out of stupidity or malice has yet to be shown.
Irrelevant. He removed classified documents from an approved container without signing them out to an approved destination. This is simply not allowed, ever.
Again, irrelevant. I myself have authored classified documents; this never once has entitled me to bring them home with me. Once again, this simply shows that you have no idea of how these things work.
Oh, lord. Improving national security is never, ever accomplished by removing documents from their place of storage. Whether he did as you say or no, we’ll never know because Berger circumvented the process of accountability.