The self-destruction and humiliation of Clinton advisor Sandy Berger’s career — in actions that clearly show he was worried that he hadn’t done enough on terrorism when he was in power — is virtually complete now with his upcoming guilty plea on charges that the stole classified papers.
At a time when Democrats (and non-partisans) are demanding that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay not get off scott free if he indulged in ethical lapses, those who believe in ONE standard for BOTH parties cannot but strongly condemn Berger, who now basically admits “I did it:”
Samuel 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.”
In other words: the earlier explanation was a lie. MORE:
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.
A few things on this:
- Berger needs to be condemned by Democrats and independents who must demand the same Zero Tolerance towards him that they are insisting be applied towards DeLay (who is not accused of a crime as serious as Berger’s at this point, by the way). And GOPers who are dumping on Berger must demand laws should be applied to DeLay (we already know DeLay’s answer: see below) just as they are to Berger.
- Berger should never EVER be allowed to be a part in any way, shape or form of ANY future administration.
- Historians should and will most assuredly take note of this. What more confirmation is necessary that Berger & Co did not quite do all that in retrospect they should have done on terrorism?
And none of the above should short-circuit journalists, politicians and scholars from continuing to look into pre-911 lapses by the Bush administration. The only way to strengthen U.S. safeguards aimed at preventing another terrorist attack is to fix what was wrong with the preparations and intelligence gathering/anslysis under ALL administrations. This isn’t about scoring political points but protecting the lives of American men, women and children.
Berger’s attempt to erase history wasn’t just getting rid of data — it was potentially getting rid of information that could have been useful to strengthen the U.S. against a future terrorist outrage.
UPDATE: John Cole:
Nothing that Sandy Berger was involved in regarding this testimony can now be taken at face value. His testimony before the commission is suspect (as is Richard Clarke’s), and I can not trust the conclusions of the commission that relate to the late Clinton years.
At its very worst, this is a story of undermining national security for personal partisan reasons. At its best, it is petty theft in the pursuit of legacy protection. Samuel “Sandy” Berger should never hold another government job as long as he lives.
Indeed, credibility is a difficult thing to regain once it is lost. Poor credibility on one issue impacts how people view what you say on other issues.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.