Now the "Washington Post" has switched over to the "What the the White House know and when did they know it" mode. Obviously, this whole episode is really an administration scandal. Can you say, "DNC talking points?"
More Revelations in Berger Inquiry
Wider Circle in Administration Claims Prior Knowledge of Probe
By Mike Allen and John F. Harris
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, July 23, 2004; Page A08
For the second day in a row, administration officials said yesterday that more of President Bush's aides knew about an investigation of former Clinton national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger than the White House originally acknowledged.
The question is sensitive because Democrats have charged that Republicans leaked word of the investigation to try to taint next week's Democratic National Convention and to distract attention from criticisms of Bush in the report of the commission investigating the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
A senior administration official, who refused to be identified, said that some National Security Council officials knew Berger -- who has resigned from his position as informal adviser to Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry -- was suspected of mishandling National Archives documents that were being sought by the commission.
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice refused to respond to a question about when she learned about the inquiry, saying it was inappropriate for her to comment when there is an ongoing criminal investigation.
During a meeting in her West Wing office with print journalists to discuss the commission report, Rice would not say when she was told of the investigation. "Sandy is somebody I've known a long time," she said. "And I think he's a good person, and I respect him. This is a criminal investigation. It's a serious matter. I'm just not going to comment about it. It would be inappropriate for me to comment about it at all except to say that he's somebody that I respect."
On Wednesday, after first suggesting that Bush's aides had learned about the investigation from news reports, White House press secretary Scott McClellan corrected the record to add that "a few individuals" in the White House counsel's office had known about the inquiry. The senior official said that a few National Security Council staff members who also report to the counsel's office had known about the inquiry. But Bush's aides refused to say whether Rice or her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, had been informed.
Former Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart, who is serving as a spokesman for Berger during the controversy, said the expanding circle of officials who the White House acknowledges had knowledge of the criminal investigation heightens his suspicion about the timing of this week's disclosure that Berger is under investigation.
"This is the third day in a row that the story has changed," Lockhart said. "First they said they didn't know. Then they said the counsel's office was aware. Now today they acknowledge the NSC was aware. Did the political operation know? Did [senior adviser] Karl Rove know? I think it's time for them to come clean, say what they knew, when they knew it, and what role if anything they had in leaking it."
Berger has acknowledged removing copies of a classified "after-action report" that he ordered to study the Clinton administration's handling of terrorist threats at the time of the millennium, but he said the removal was unintentional. He returned some copies after being contacted by Archives officials, but some documents are missing and were apparently discarded.
Also yesterday, Bruce R. Lindsey, who serves as former president Bill Clinton's liaison to the Archives, said he was not alerted to concerns about missing documents until two days after Berger's Oct. 2 visit. That was the same day that Berger was notified, and he searched his office for the missing papers. A government source claiming knowledge of the investigation said that Archives officials alerted Lindsey to concerns after a visit by Berger in September. Lindsey said yesterday this was not the case.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company |
