Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Sandy Berger Update: Destroying Classified Documents



Click here for AmazonGee, I wonder why Berger was, by his own admission, pilfering and destroying documents? If you want your blood pressure to stay within its normal systolic/diastolic range, please don't read the last line of the following article from the Post.

The criminal probe into why former Bill Clinton aide Sandy Berger illegally sneaked top-secret documents out of the National Archives — possibly in his socks — has heated up and is now before a federal grand jury...

...Berger admits removing 40 to 50 top-secret documents from the archives, but claims it was an "honest mistake" made while he vetted documents for the 9/11 commission's probe into the Twin Towers attacks.

Berger has also acknowledged that he destroyed some documents — he says by accident...

...The documents include multiple drafts of a review of the 2000 millennium threat said to conclude that only luck prevented a 2000 attack.

That story conflicts with Berger's own testimony to the commission, in which he claimed that "we thwarted" millennium attacks by being vigilant — rather than by sheer luck, as the review reportedly suggests.

The probe was touched off last spring when stunned archives staffers reported seeing Berger sneak classified documents out of a top-secret reading room in his pants and socks while vetting Clinton-era items for the commission.

They then ran a sting operation in which they coded some documents and confirmed they were missing when Berger left.

The documents were classified Code Word, the highest security classification, above Top Secret.

The commission report makes clear that Berger had a habit of writing candid notes in the margin of memos, sometimes flatly rejecting plans for action.

He nixed a plan to capture Osama bin Laden with one word: "No."


NY Post: Sandy Berger Update: Destroying Classified Documents

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