Odd thing: Re Berger: The 2nd headline article in the Seattle Times this AM was this article. Tonight, it is gone, but most of the front page is still on line as it was in the paper edition. Had to go to extra lengths to even find it via google....so for the record, am placing it here to document the AP report....
Adviser to Clinton took classified terrorism documents
By JOHN SOLOMON
The Associated Press
seattletimes.nwsource.com
WASHINGTON — Former President Clinton's national-security adviser, Sandy Berger, is the focus of a Justice Department investigation after removing highly classified terrorism documents and handwritten notes from a secure reading room during preparations for the Sept. 11 commission hearings, The Associated Press has learned.
Berger's home and office were searched earlier this year by FBI agents armed with warrants after he voluntarily returned documents to the National Archives in response to a request for the missing materials. However, still missing are some drafts of a sensitive report on the Clinton administration's handling of the millennium bombing plot involving Ahmed Ressam, The Washington Post reported. Berger and his lawyer said last night he knowingly removed handwritten notes he had made while reading classified anti-terror documents at the archives last summer and fall by sticking the notes in his jacket and pants. He also inadvertently took copies of classified documents in a leather portfolio, they said.
"I deeply regret the sloppiness involved, but I had no intention of withholding documents from the commission, and to the contrary, to my knowledge, every document requested by the commission from the Clinton administration was produced," Berger said in a statement.
Lanny Breuer, one of Berger's attorneys, said his client has offered to cooperate fully with the investigation but had not been interviewed by the FBI or prosecutors. Berger has been told he is the subject of the criminal investigation, Breuer said.
There are federal laws strictly governing the handling of classified information, including prohibiting the unauthorized release or removal of such materials.
Former CIA Director John Deutch was pardoned by Clinton just hours before Clinton left office in 2001, for taking home classified information and keeping it on unsecured computers at his home during his time at the CIA and Pentagon. Deutch was about to enter into a plea agreement for a misdemeanor charge of mishandling government secrets when the pardon was granted.
Berger served as Clinton's national-security adviser for all of the president's second term and most recently has been informally advising Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Clinton asked Berger last year to review and select the administration documents that would be turned over to the Sept. 11 commission.
The FBI searches of Berger's home and office occurred after National Archives employees told agents they believed they saw Berger place documents in his clothing while he was reading sensitive Clinton-administration papers and that some documents were then noticed missing, officials said.
When asked, Berger said, he returned some classified documents that he found in his office and all of the handwritten notes he had taken from the secure room, but could not locate two or three copies of the highly classified millennium terrorism report.
"In the course of reviewing over several days thousands of pages of documents on behalf of the Clinton administration in connection with requests by the Sept. 11 commission, I inadvertently took a few documents from the Archives," Berger said.
"When I was informed by the Archives that there were documents missing, I immediately returned everything I had except for a few documents that I apparently had accidentally discarded."
Breuer said Berger believed he was looking at copies of the classified documents, not originals.
Berger was allowed to take handwritten notes and knew that taking his notes out of the secure reading room was a "technical violation of Archive procedures, but it is not at all clear to us this represents a violation of the law," Breuer said.
"There was huge pressure to review the documents quickly for claims of executive privilege and responsiveness," Breuer said. Government and congressional officials familiar with the investigation, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because the probe involves classified materials, said the missing documents were highly classified, and included critical assessments about the Clinton administration's handling of the millennium terror threats as well as identification of America's vulnerabilities from airports to seaports.
Berger testified at one of the commission's public hearings about the Clinton administration's approach to fighting terrorism.
The former national-security adviser had ordered his anti-terror czar, Richard Clarke, in early 2000 to write the post-millennium report and has spoken publicly about how the review brought to the forefront the realization that al-Qaida had reached America's shores and required more attention.
Berger testified that during the millennium period, "we thwarted threats and I do believe it was important to bring the principals together on a frequent basis" to consider terror threats more regularly.
The missing documents involve two or three draft versions of the report as it was evolving and being refined by the Clinton administration, officials and lawyers say. National-security adviser Condoleezza Rice testified to the Sept. 11 panel that she did not recall being briefed on the report during the transition period to the Bush administration, and she said she did not read it until after the Sept. 11 attacks, when Vice President Dick Cheney distributed it.
Rice characterized the report as concluding that Ressam, later convicted in a plan to bomb Los Angeles International Airport, was caught by chance. "I think it actually wasn't by chance, which was Washington's view of it," Rice testified. "It was because a very alert customs agent" was suspicious of Ressam as he attempted to cross into the U.S. from Canada, she said. Ressam was arrested at Port Angeles.
Breuer told The Washington Post that agents did not take anything from Berger's safe, and from his office they took a few index cards bearing notes from meetings on the Middle East that Berger made at Camp David. Those are not a focus of the criminal probe, officials and lawyers said.
Breuer said the Archives staff first raised concerns with Berger during an Oct. 2 review of documents that at least one copy of the post-millennium report he had reviewed earlier was missing. Berger was given a second copy that day, Breuer said.
Officials familiar with the investigation said Archives staff specially marked the documents, and when the new copy and others disappeared, Archives officials called Clinton attorney Bruce Lindsey to report the disappearance.
Berger immediately returned all the notes he had taken, and he conducted a search and located two copies of the classified documents on a messy desk in his office, Breuer said. An Archives official came to Berger's home to collect those documents, but Berger couldn't locate the other missing copies, the lawyer said.
In January, the FBI executed search warrants of a safe at Berger's home as well as his business office. Agents also failed to find the missing documents.
Justice Department officials told the Sept. 11 commission of the Berger incident and the nature of the documents in case commissioners wanted more information, officials said. The commission is expected to release its final report Thursday.
Congressional intelligence committees, however, have not been formally notified. "We've been trying to work with the government on this. ... And then today, a couple of days before the 9-11 commission report comes out, the whole thing gets leaked," Breuer told Reuters news service. |
