Berger's Sticky, Filthy Little Nubs

"Mr. Berger panicked because he realized he was caught."  

He then slid the documents under a construction trailer ... "He was aware of the risk he was taking,"

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

Wow. The left believes it can get away with anything and they can. Read this with incredulity. Dumbfounded. Sandy Berger, nformal adviser to the Kerry campaign (perfect) and Clinton appointtee to vet Clinton-administration documents before those documents were turned over to the September 11 investigating commission (more perfect) was let off with a mere slap on the wrist. He admitted last week, the account he initially gave federal was fined $50,000, ordered to perform 100 hours of community service and was barred from access to classified material for three years and look at what a lowlife he was. This man should be rotting in jail. But Scooter Libby is sweating for an offense that never happened. What a world. Via Drudge

"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. Article here.

Astounding. Back in April 2005, the Washington Times ran this oped;

When confronted, Mr. Berger lied. He told investigators he had mistakenly taken the documents and then disposed of them inadvertently afterward. In public statements on the matter he called the theft "an honest mistake." He declared his only intent had been to collect materials for testimony about the Clinton administration's counterterrorism policies for the September 11 Commission. At the time, Bill Clinton dismissed the matter with a chuckle. "The innocent explanation is the most likely one," Mr. Clinton told reporters in Colorado. "We were all laughing about it on the way over here."
    But it wasn't innocent, and it wasn't a laughing matter. As Mr. Berger investigators was wrong. The plea agreement he reached with the Department of Justice details that, in fact, he deliberately removed the documents from the National Archives and that far from disposing of them mistakenly, he cut them to pieces with scissors. None of this was inadvertent, a Berger associate acknowledged last week to the Washington Post.
    What was Mr. Berger doing with the documents? And why did he destroy only three? The likeliest answer is that he sought to conceal comments he or other Clinton administration officials wrote on them when they were circulating in January 2000. He couldn't have been trying to erase the document itself from the record, since copies besides the five exist elsewhere. What's likelier is that jottings in the margins of the three copies he destroyed bore telling indications of the Clinton administration's approach to terrorism.

Photo shop: Rush

UPDATE: JJ has written this witty ditty in the comments section and it deserves main page prominence. jj, this rocks, love love love it.

sandy berger’s pants

he gots ants in his pants
and a bowling ball, blue,
three pairs of socks,
and an old brown shoe.

he gots ants in his pants,
some bricks and some mortar, too,
some sand and six pounds o’ rocks,
gots to repair an old chimney flue.

stuffed his briefcase under his belt,
full of papers and micro-fishies
hand carried his lunch out in a paper sack,
didn’t want no mayo, gettin’ on his micro penis-iche.

he gots ants in his pants,
a framed autographed glossy of monica, brand new,
two ink pens and a magic marker,
and an old recipe for whatchacallit stew.

he gots ants in his pants,
why, my goodness, if you worked for bill, wouldn’t you?
gots some sins and omissions for the commissions,
why, my goodness, working for bill, whatchagonna do?

oh yeah, he gots ants in his pants,
and some used-to-be-state-secret stuff, can’t view,
i’d like to know some of that guff, wouldn’t you?
but, my goodness, working for bill, what you gonna do?

end up like vincent, with the 9 millimeter flu?

oh, sandy, he gots ants in his pants,
some chump change, case he gots to get frugal
and a road map of arkansas, and environs,
case he gots to go hide, with the billings, and susan mcdougal.

chorus for soros, ….
so who gots the papers,
think that they belongs to billy,
or do you ‘spose, just like the law office billings
that they wind up on a desk belonging to hilly?
she smells like the sweetest rose, if they vanish in the vapors.
oh, yeah, just vanish in the air, like a wraith of swirling ether.

john jay  @ 09.17.2006

Comments

[Joseph]

hmm, wonder why Sandy Burglar didn't spend a day in jail? Nevermind... he would have been pardoned anyway. Trust me on this one, there's more to this story than meets the eye.

[Joseph]

... trying to hide something on the rapist in Chief? Imagine the information that could be had with a little truth serum.

[john jay]

sandy berger’s pants

he gots ants in his pants
and a bowling ball, blue,
three pairs of socks,
and an old brown shoe.

he gots ants in his pants,
some bricks and some mortar, too,
some sand and six pounds o’ rocks,
gots to repair an old chimney flue.

stuffed his briefcase under his belt,
full of papers and micro-fishies
hand carried his lunch out in a paper sack,
didn’t want no mayo, gettin’ on his micro penis-iche.

he gots ants in his pants,
a framed autographed glossy of monica, brand new,
two ink pens and a magic marker,
and an old recipe for whatchacallit stew.

he gots ants in his pants,
why, my goodness, if you worked for bill, wouldn’t you?
gots some sins and omissions for the commissions,
why, my goodness, working for bill, whatchagonna do?

oh yeah, he gots ants in his pants,
and some used-to-be-state-secret stuff, can’t view,
i’d like to know some of that guff, wouldn’t you?
but, my goodness, working for bill, what you gonna do?

end up like vincent, with the 9 millimeter flu?

oh, sandy, he gots ants in his pants,
some chump change, case he gots to get frugal
and a road map of arkansas, and environs,
case he gots to go hide, with the billings, and susan mcdougal.

chorus for soros, ….
so who gots the papers,
think that they belongs to billy,
or do you ‘spose, just like the law office billings
that they wind up on a desk belonging to hilly?
she smells like the sweetest rose, if they vanish in the vapors.
oh, yeah, just vanish in the air, like a wraith of swirling ether.

john jay @ 09.17.2006

[john jay]

sorry, couldn't resist.

jjj

[Joseph]

hehe
Your a poet JJ!
Good night...

[john jay]

folks:

the poem was fun. always fun poking the clintons in the rear with a sharp stick: hope i did.

but, please remember.-- sandy berger was no flunky. he was bill clinton's national security advisor, and if memory serves me correctly, isn't that a cabinet post.

berger had larger prospects. he was being touted for a supreme court nomination in the event of hillary's election to president, not an unlikely prospect.

what was on those papers that a man like berger, certainly no ordinary pawn, would risk and actually suffer the end of his career in "beltway public service" to keep from public knowledge.

and the most interesting topic of all.--just who was the person that berger so wanted to protect or so feared that he fell on his own sword, and gave up so much for? how much was paid to secure his silence?

john jay

[eavesdropper]

this is beyond sickening.

jj - nice poem

[chsw]

There is another, more damning explanation of Berger's conduct. Placing the documents under a construction trailer usually means that this was a "drop." Another person could have come by, taken the documents and run them through a portable copier, and then replaced them under the trailer. Alternately, altered documents could have been placed under the trailer. Berger would place these back into the archives, and no one would ever know what happened.

In short, Berger may have been a spy for China or Russia. For whom did he lobby before and after his Clinton Administration service? That would be a good place to start an investigation.

At a minimum, Berger should have received a jail sentence, lost his law license, and lost all future access to nonpublic material. The last of these can still be done simply by executive branch action. The Archives directors can just ban him.

chsw

[tazzerman2000]

chsw, I could not agree with you more. Jail, loss of his law license and future access to nonpublic materials etc are all things that should have been done.

I can think of a few more but they would fall into the cruel and unusual catagory so they probably are best left unsaid.

Of course, the question still remains, what was he hiding?? I'm afraid we will never find out.

[Pamela Geller]

jj, that was the best.

Woo hoo.

[john jay]

pamela:
the picture is hilarious. especially like the envelope sticking out of pant leg.
jjj