Archives Staff Was Suspicious of Berger- Why Documents Were Missing Is Dis

[papau]

Anything written by Susan Schmidt is Op-ed - and not news - as she helps the GOP take a fellow with a reputation as a tireless defender of his country and try to assassinate his character so as to take the heat off the 911 report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A4189-2004Jul21?language=printer

Susan Schmidt: Archives Staff Was Suspicious of Berger
Why Documents Were Missing Is Disputed

By John F. Harris and Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, July 22, 2004; Page A06


Last Oct. 2, former Clinton national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger stayed huddled over papers at the National Archives until 8 p.m.

What he did not know as he labored through that long Thursday was that the same Archives employees who were solicitously retrieving documents for him were also watching their important visitor with a suspicious eye.

After Berger's previous visit, in September, Archives officials believed documents were missing. This time, they specially coded the papers to more easily tell whether some disappeared, said government officials and legal sources familiar with the case.

The notion of one of Washington's most respected foreign policy figures being subjected to treatment that had at least a faint odor of a sting operation is a strange one. But the peculiarities -- and conflicting versions of events and possible motives -- were just then beginning in a case that this week bucked Berger out of an esteemed position as a leader of the Democratic government-in-waiting that had assembled around presidential nominee John F. Kerry.

As his attorneys tell it, Berger had no idea in October that documents were missing from the Archives, or that archivists suspected him in the disappearance. It was not until two days later, on Saturday, Oct. 4, that he was contacted by Archives employees who said that they were concerned about missing files, from his September and October visits. This call -- in Berger's version of the chronology, which is disputed in essential respects by a government official with knowledge of the investigation -- was made with a tone of concern, but not accusation.

Berger, his attorney Lanny Breuer said, checked his office and realized for the first time that he had walked out -- unintentionally, he says -- with important papers relating to the Clinton administration's efforts to combat terrorism.

Berger alerted Archives employees that evening to what he had found. The classified documents were sensitive enough that employees arrived on a Sunday morning to pick them up.

Several days later, after he had retained Breuer as counsel, Berger volunteered that he had also taken 40 to 50 pages of notes during three visits to the Archives beginning in July, the lawyer said. Berger turned the notes over to the Archives. He has acknowledged through attorneys that he knowingly did not show these papers to Archives officials for review before leaving -- a violation of Archives rules, but not one that he perceived as a serious security lapse.<snip>

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/22/politics/22berger.html

Seems Bush admits that senior officials in its counsel's office were told by Justice Department investigators months ago that a criminal investigation (not a target of - just get info type investigation)was under way re: Berger

White House Knew of Inquiry on Aide; Kerry Camp Irked
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and DAVID E. SANGER

Published: July 22, 2004


ASHINGTON, July 21 - The White House said Wednesday that senior officials in its counsel's office were told by the Justice Department months ago that a criminal investigation was under way to determine if Samuel R. Berger, the national security adviser under President Bill Clinton, removed classified documents about Al Qaeda from the National Archives.

The White House declined to say who beyond the counsel's office knew about the investigation, but some administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they believed that several top aides to Mr. Bush were informed of the investigation. President Bush himself declined to answer a question Wednesday about whether he had been told, saying: "I'm not going to comment on this matter. This is a serious matter, and it will be fully investigated by the Justice Department."<snip>

But Mr. Kerry himself, as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, would probably have access to any such documents, and the clearances to read them. On Wednesday evening, Mr. Berger's spokesman, Joe Lockhart, said: "Mr. Berger never passed any classified information to the Kerry campaign. Any suggestion to the contrary cannot be supported by any facts."<snip>

[Moderator]

1. Good article. Thanks for posting. But please remember DU copyright rules.

Excerpted portions of copyrighted material are limited to four paragraphs.


Thanks
Moderator

[struggle4progress]

2. So little Suzie is saying ...

... "documents were missing from the Archives" and "he .. walked out .. with important papers" without mentioning that ONLY COPIES ARE INVOLVED?

One expects better from a rag that likes to consider itself the paper of record for DC.