The Volokh Conspiracy
[Jonathan Adler, December 22, 2006 at 2:45pm] Trackbacks
Sandy Burglar OIG Report:

The Inspector's General report on Sandy Berger's theft of classified documents is available on-line here. One does not need to believe that Berger was part of some sort of conspiracy to believe his actions, as described therein, were serious breaches of the public trust.

Related Posts (on one page):

  1. Sandy Berger Leaves the Bar:
  2. What Did Sandy Berger Burgle?
  3. Sandy Burglar OIG Report:
  4. Sandy Burglar:
Greedy Clerk (mail):
Would that Jonathan Adler paid as much attention to Scooter Libby's reprehensible behavior as he does to Sandy Berger's. Would that Jonathan Adler paid any attention to the more damaging crimes -- yes crimes -- of this administration with respect to FISA, torturing United States citizens without process of any kind (see, e.g., Jose Padilla who Ilya Somin assures us is "no doubt guilty" [of what we have no idea]), illegal renditions of persons, later proven without question to be innocent, to be tortured by our purported enemies such as Syria, etc., etc. I guess these incidents do not lend themselves to clever nicknames like "Sandy Burglar."
12.22.2006 2:59pm
Anderson (mail) (www):
I guess these incidents do not lend themselves to clever nicknames like "Sandy Burglar."

Sounds like sufficient justification to me.

When Prof. Adler sets up his "Watchblog on Misdeeds of Public Servants," I will be miffed indeed if he shows any partisan bias. Until then, not so much.
12.22.2006 4:00pm
BGates (mail) (www):
Greedy Clerk, lost in your paean to respect for the law is the fact that your comment mentions only one person who has been convicted of a crime, and that is Sandy Berger.

Would that Jonathan Adler paid as much attention to allegations against Republicans as he does to convictions against Democrats!
12.22.2006 4:14pm
Bruce:
Well, I'm a Democrat, but I still don't understand what Berger was thinking, and I think his punishment was rather light.
12.22.2006 5:01pm
The Drill SGT (mail):
As a guy who has been a Top Secret Documents custodian I was struck by how much slack they cut Berger. All DoD or DoD contractor facilities have signs at the entrance that warn you that you and packages can be searched. They knew exactly what Berger was doing but treated him with kid gloves. Noblesse Oblige I guess. I would have stopped him at the door and asked him where the documents were and held him until the FBI arrived. He's a thief and a liar. I can't believe he gets his security clearance back after 3 years.

It's obvious what he was doing. He wanted to conceal from the 9/11 commission the terrible record of the Clinton folks WRT OBL. Specifically he wanted to destroy various versions of the memo with White house margin notes.
12.22.2006 6:09pm
omarbradley:
Unfortunately, Berger is part of the DC establishment that extends beyond party lines.

Both parties are more interested in protecting themselves and covering up for each other than in serving the public.
12.22.2006 8:33pm
Jacobus:
Regardless of the situation, I think it's beneath this blog to be calling people playground names that way. Really cheapens the discourse.
12.23.2006 12:13am
Wayne (mail):
I have wondered if Berger was swapping documents out and not stealing them. His actions make a little more sense in that context.
12.24.2006 4:05am
David M. Nieporent (www):
One clarification:
I can't believe he gets his security clearance back after 3 years.
This isn't the case. He is eligible to apply for a clearance in three years, but nothing in his plea bargain "gives it back" to him. There's pretty much no chance the Senate will ever confirm him to any position ever again, or that he'll ever get a security clearance.
12.26.2006 4:01pm
Sammy Finkelman (mail):
>> Well, I'm a Democrat, but I still don't understand
>> what Berger was thinking,

Well, in general, he took his notes - which are not supposed to be removed, but can be be sent to the NSC with a request to declassify - with him because he needed to very carefully review them to help prepare Clinton to lie, but the removal of the dcuments was apparently to prevent the 9/11 Commission from getting them and he eneded to remove ALL copies. (This did not destroy them from the long term historical record, especially since all the documents they were printouts from a hard drive
- this wasn't the Lincoln or the Wilson or even the Truman or Kennedy Administration - this came from the era of computers - the originals were computer files - but it would keep them away from the 9/11 Commission

From Enclosure 7:

It never occurred to Mr. Berger that by removing the MAAR from the Archives, it would not be provided to the 9/11 Commission. It was his assumption the box of dcuments he was reviewing at the Archives, or a copy of them was going from teh Archives to teh White house. He did not assume his removal of the documents kept them from going forward to the 9/11 Commission. Mr. berger knew he was not reviewing originals.

In other anything missing was not going to be printed out again.
12.26.2006 6:10pm
Sammy Finkelman (mail):
Sorry for typos
12.26.2006 6:10pm

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