It was only THE most important investigation in our lifetime, or so we were told.
The 9/11 Commission was going to look at ALL of the available documentation, interview everyone who might provide any insight, and tell the American people how we reached a point where Islamic Fascists knocked down the World Trade Center Towers, crashed a jet into the Pentagon, and brought down another in Pennsylvania that was likely headed for the Capitol, killing thousands of people (our friends, our family, our neighbors). Then they were going to tell us how we go about preventing this from ever happening again.
So.. what does good citizen Sandy Berger do, either on his own or at the direction of his spiritual guides — the Clintons? Why good ole’ Sandy covers his butt with classified documents which very likely had information that would have been 1) very helpful to the commission and 2) very embarrassing to the Clinton administration.
FoxNews December 21, 2006: President Clinton’s national security adviser removed classified documents from the National Archives, hid them under a construction trailer and later tried to find the trash collector to retrieve them, the agency’s internal watchdog said Wednesday.
If, as his attorney claims, this information is available elsewhere, why go through the trouble of stealing every single copy from the National Archives and destroying them. Seems like quite a risk to take for something that is available elsewhere.
FoxNews December 21, 2006: Berger’s lawyer, Lanny Breuer, said in a statement that the contents of all the documents exist today and were made available to the commission.
Berger pleaded guilty to unlawfully removing and retaining classified documents. He was fined $50,000, ordered to perform 100 hours of community service and was barred from access to classified material for three years.
Three years!!?? How about for-e-ver!
From FoxNews April 3, 2005: under a plea agreement that [U.S. Magistrate Deborah] Robinson must accept, instead of jail, Berger would pay a … fine, surrender his security clearance for three years and cooperate with investigators.
So how about that cooperation Sandy? You know what was in those documents. You already pleaded guilty, so you can’t be prosecuted for this crime again. How about coming clean and telling the American people what was so important in those documents that they had to be destroyed? Or would that hurt President Clinton’s precious legacy or Senator Clinton’s chances for ascension to the presidency in 2008?
So far, cooperation seems to be in the form of denying there was anything criminal in his actions, denying the documents were originals, denying there is anything that is not already available elsewhere… In other words, Sandy Berger took the extreme step of stealing and destroying classified documents for no reason at all.. a whim perhaps, just something he felt like doing that night…
OK… so you’re Sandy Berger and you want to “prepare” yourself and others for a commission appearance, what do you do? Clearly the right thing to do is to STEAL the necessary CLASSIFIED documents and then destroy them before you even share them with the other folks you are trying to help prepare for the commission hearing. That makes perfect sense; why would anyone ever question that?
FoxNews April 3, 2005: But still missing are drafts of a sensitive after-action report on the Clinton administration’s response to a failed terror plot to blow up the Los Angeles International Airport during December 1999, otherwise known as “the Millennium plot.”
One source told FOX News that the report was critical of how the Clinton administration handled Al Qaeda threats to the U.S. homeland and that the missing report made security recommendations that were never implemented.
Wouldn’t want to share anything critical of the Clinton administration with the commission… even if it might be a key to learning from past mistakes to prevent future disasters.
Face it, the Clinton administration was one of the most corrupt in history and they are still screwing the American people even after they are out of office. Unlike the disappearing/reappearing documents of Hillary Clinton, Sandy Berger has managed to wipe out any trace of something, who knows what, that was clearly important enough to Berger and the Clintons that he was willing to risk jail time to make sure they were destroyed.
12/22 Update from the Washington Times (via Gina Cobb):
The outgoing chairman of the House Government Reform Committee says questions remain about former National Security Adviser Samuel R. Berger’s removal of classified documents from the National Archives and pledged yesterday to get the answers.
“I don’t care if it’s Sandy Berger or Warren Burger or Veggie Burger who walked off with these documents,” said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, Virginia Republican. “It’s the lax controls that permitted such a theft; it’s the way it was handled internally at the Archives and then by [the Justice Department] that is of grave concern.”
I like that line 
”At best, Berger’s actions portray a disturbing breach of trust and protocol,” Mr. Davis said. “At worst, however, Berger’s actions suggest an intentional effort to keep critical information away from the 9/11 commission and the American public.
”Our work has not concluded, and we fully expect to continue our oversight efforts with respect to this matter,” he said.
Good! We need to know exactly what the Clinton administration is hiding here. It is shameful that they are putting their personal interests and the “Clinton legacy” ahead of national security… I’m not sure whether this is surprising or expected, but I thought everything changed on 9/11… guess not.
Let’s see if the new Democrat chair of the committee is as interested in finding the truth as Davis.
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