Would You Like Some Lies With That Berger?

July 21, 2004

Stuffing classified documents in his socks, his pants, his coat pockets, Sandy Berger, the former Clinton national security advisor, is in serious trouble. He has admitted taking classified documents from the National Archives prior to the 9/11 Commission's investigation into the intelligence breakdown that led to the attacks. Professional political spear-catchers like Lanny Davis have scoffed at the notion that Berger stuffed documents in his socks. “ I suggest that person is lying. Let's see who it is who made the comment that Sandy Berger stuffed something into his socks,” said Davis, the former Clinton White House counsel. Let's see, indeed.

 

CNN, a network not known for its tilt to the right, cited three law enforcement sources who stated they had seen Berger placing the documents in his socks. Given the historical spin from Lanny Davis and his fellow henchmen, I'd say three law enforcement officers trump a Lanny Davis any day.

 

Whether Berger stuffed documents in his socks, down his pants or up his nose is irrelevant. He has admitted to taking documents, no matter how they left the National Archives. He says it was done “inadvertently” but some of the stolen documents came up missing after he had returned all he claimed to have taken. He told investigators he must have “inadvertently” tossed some of the top-secret papers. What do you think the odds are that happened by accident?

 

The central question now is, what was he trying to hide?

 

We know that some of the discarded documents had to do with the foiled Millennium bombing plot and what the administration did with the gathered intelligence afterwards. Attorney General John Ashcroft testified in April about the documents we now know Berger was trying to hide. “The NSC's Millennium After-Action Review declares that the United States barely missed major terrorist attacks in 1999 – with luck playing a major role,” Ashcroft told the Commission. “Among the many vulnerabilities in homeland defenses identified, the Justice Department's surveillance and FISA operations were specifically criticized for their glaring weaknesses. It is clear from the review that actions taken in the Millennium period should not be the operating model for the U.S. government.” It's certainly clear why Sandy Berger didn't want those documents to be revealed to the commission.

 

Ashcroft went on to inform the commission that the Millennium plot review warned the Clinton administration “of a substantial al Qaida network and affiliated foreign terrorist presence within the U.S., capable of supporting additional terrorist attacks here. Furthermore, fully seventeen months before the September 11 attacks, the review recommends disrupting the al Qaida network and terrorist presence here using immigration violations, minor criminal infractions, and tougher visa and border controls.”

 

What this After-Action Review apparently reveals is the fact that al Qaida cells penetrated America during Berger's watch and the Clinton administration did relatively little about it. This runs contrary to what the former president and his close advisors have been telling us.

 

Berger's lawyers have attempted to deal with investigators but they appear to be in no mood for deals. Deputy Attorney General James Comey warned, “ We take issues of classified information very, very seriously. All felonies in the federal system bring with them the promise of jail time.”

 

The ironic part of this whole story is the partisan Democrats in Congress who have been squealing that someone has been lying to them now know who. Now that we know it was the previous administration, these same hacks are jumping to Berger's defense and crying foul over the timing of the investigation. To you shrill, political opportunists in Congress, put one of Sandy Berger's socks in it.