Everyone has already seen the Berger documents. I want to see Bush's docs.

[bigtree]

All of the information in the documents Berger inadvertently recieved, and subsequently returned, was widley distributed and widely known. Bush, however, has in his possession scores of documents detailing backroom dealmaking, in and out of office, that has seriously undermined our governmental process and conceals the business interests of both Bush and Cheney as they used their public offices and connections for the feathering of theirs and their friend's private fortunes at the expense of taxpayers and the environment.

This is certainly more relevant than widely circulated notes of Richard Clark, accidently taken by Sandy Berger, which detail the Clinton administration's efforts in fighting terror.
__________________________________________________

Bush Admin. Continues to Deny Public's Right to Know
http://www.nrdc.org/air/energy/taskforce/tfinx.asp

In the spring of 2002, under order from a federal judge, the U.S. Department of Energy released to NRDC roughly 13,500 pages relating to previously secret proceedings of the Bush administration's energy task force. (President Bush formed the task force in early 2001 to develop a national energy policy, with Vice President Cheney at the helm.) Even though the government heavily censored the documents before supplying them to NRDC, they reveal that Bush administration officials sought extensive advice from utility companies and the oil, gas, coal and nuclear energy industries, and incorporated their recommendations, often word for word, into the energy plan.

In April 2001 NRDC filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act for access to the task force's records; the Bush administration refused to comply. NRDC filed suit, and a federal judge ordered the administration to turn over the documents. On March 25, 2002, nearly a year after first requesting them, NRDC received roughly 10,000 pages relating to the task force from the Department of Energy. Subsequently the department provided another 3,500 pages, but withheld more than 16,000 others.


May 21, 2002 - Energy Dept. Documents Verify Industry Influence
http://www.nrdc.org//media/pressreleases/020521b.asp

May 21, 2002 - Industry had Extensive Access to Energy Task Force
http://www.nrdc.org//media/pressreleases/020521.asp

May 10, 2002 - Bush Admin. Continues to Deny Public's Right to Know
http://www.nrdc.org//media/pressreleases/020510.asp

April 26, 2002 - Energy Dept. Releases Index of Missing Documents
http://www.nrdc.org//media/pressreleases/020426.asp

April 11, 2002 - Energy Dept. Still Stonewalling
http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/020411.asp

March 27, 2002 - Heavily Censored Papers Show Industry Writes Energy Report
http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/020327.asp

Feb 27, 2002 - NRDC To Obtain Task Force Records
http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/020227a.asp

January 30, 2002 - NRDC Asks Court To Force Immediate Release
http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/020124.asp

January 24, 2002 - Administration Snubs Lawsuit Seeking Facts On Task Force
http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/020124.asp

December 11, 2001 - NRDC Sues Department of Energy
http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/011211a.asp
__________________________________________________________

Bush, Harken, and the Public’s Right to Know

Earlier this summer, national media outlets reported on President George W. Bush’s activities as a director with Texas oil company Harken Energy in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The stories referenced documents obtained by the Center during the course of research for the The Buying of the President 2000, as well as two Center investigative reports.

RELATED REPORTS

A Brief History of Bush, Harken and the SEC
http://www.public-i.org/dtaweb/report.asp?ReportID=464&L1=10&L2=10&L3=0&L4=0&L5=0

Harken’s Ivy League Underwriter
http://www.public-i.org/dtaweb/report.asp?ReportID=465&L1=10&L2=10&L3=0&L4=0&L5=0

Harken-related documents posted by the Center
http://www.public-i.org/dtaweb/report.asp?ReportID=466&L1=10&L2=10&L3=0&L4=0&L5=0

As a public service, the Center posted a number of documents related to a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation of Bush for insider trading. In an attempt to allow for easier navigating, we are re-posting all the information in the order it was posted.

We are also making available some new documents from our files that shed additional light on what transpired at Harken while Bush was a director

Among the new postings:

A partnership agreement between Aeneas Venture Corp., a subsidiary of Harvard Management, and Harken. The Wall Street Journal and Boston Globe recently wrote that Bush proposed the creation of an Enron-style, off-the-books partnership involving Harken and Harvard Management, based on Harken’s public disclosures. The Center now provides the internal document, and an Oct. 31, 1990, letter from Harken to Harvard discussing how the partners would account for some transactions.. http://www.public-i.org/dtaweb/downloads/harken_101702_doc4.pdf
http://www.public-i.org/dtaweb/downloads/harken_101702_doc1.pdf

Losses at a Harken subsidiary, Harken Marketing, put the company in a difficult position in 1990. Harken Marketing traded futures contracts – which were much in the news when Enron, Bush’s top career patron, collapsed in Oct. 2001. An internal company memo sheds some light on Harken’s activity and reveals one of Harken’s partners in commodities trading was Enron.
http://www.public-i.org/dtaweb/downloads/harken_101702_doc2.pdf

Bush was paid $80,000 in 1987-1988 to consult for Harken, according to a company proxy statement, though he was working full time for his father’s presidential campaign. The George Herbert Walker Bush campaign paid for his son’s trips to attend Harken board meetings, and was later reimbursed by Harken. Those documents are being provided by the Center.
http://www.public-i.org/dtaweb/downloads/harken_101702_doc3.pdf

Company proxy statements from 1990 and 1991.
http://www.public-i.org/dtaweb/downloads/harken_proxy90.pdf
http://www.public-i.org/dtaweb/downloads/harken_proxy91.pdf

In addition, we are publishing new reports chronicling Bush’s Harken tenure and the close relationship between Harvard and Harken.
http://www.public-i.org/dtaweb/report.asp?ReportID=465&L1=10&L2=10&L3=0&L4=0&L5=0

Full report>>
http://www.public-i.org/dtaweb/report.asp?ReportID=464&L1=10&L2=10&L3=0&L4=0&L5=0
______________________________________________________

Court Says Cheney Can Hide Documents- Jun 25, 2004
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4741.shtml

The Supreme Court protected the Bush administration Thursday from having to reveal potentially embarrassing details about Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force until after the election, sending the case back to a lower court and noting a "paramount necessity of protecting the executive branch from vexatious litigation."
The justices voted 7-2 to have an appeals court decide whether a federal open government law could be used to compel the administration to publicly release task force documents, dragging out an already 3-year-old fight over the records.

The opinion is available at:

http://wid.ap.org/documents/scotus/040624cheney.pdf

Judicial Watch: http://www.judicialwatch.org/

Sierra Club: http://www.sierraclub.org/

[shockingelk]

1. About those documents!

Do you figure any are in the facility Berger removed "documents" from?

One of the unexplained things is why Berger said he lost "a few" documents when the archivists say only one is missing. Cue Twilight-Zone Theme.

[bigtree]

2. Sandy's attorney says that he only had copies of documents

That would indicate that all of the info is still archived. Anyhow, Richard Clark says of the missing docs that they are drafts of existing docs that all the members of the commission had access to that contained minor edits. The info has apparently been used in books and articles written on security affairs and is not relevant to anything incriminating, embarassing, or of vital national security concern.

[shockingelk]

3. Yes, there are conflicting reports however

And honestly, when someone in the Washington crowd is caught doing something illegal, they still haven't learned to limit damage by coming fully clean right away. If Berger did violate and knows he violated laws, he'd be the first to fess up completely right off the bat.

We just don't know enough to separate reflexive support from allies and gross spin by adversaries. I would like to trust Berger's word, but find it hard to do if indeed he did not immediately realize he'd removed classified docs. There is a difference between being messy and being stupid.

[bigtree]

4. I know enough about those leveling charges to make a judgement

about the substance of their accusations. And I know enough about Sandy Berger to trust his version of events. The FBI has had this case for months and hasn't produced any formal accusations of misuse or criminal intent. For others to leap ahead of the investigation and level charges smacks of an orchestrated political diversion that would, if republicans had their way, detract from the excellent campaign of John Kerry and muddle criticism of the Bush administration's conduct leading up to 9-11; a familiar pattern with this cabal. There is the glaring absense of motive for any deliberate misuse of these documents and I believe the burden is on the accusers to prove that there was more than a benign neglect in Sandy Berger's actions. So far the same gang of obstructioners and obfuscators who have mucked up our democracy with their political nonsense have lined up to castigate Sandy, hoping something sticks to him out of all of the BS they have thrown. I think that their aim, to tar Kerry with the same brush, will fail as an obvious attempt to cover Bush's security and intelligence mistakes. They should only serve to draw more attention to the report when it is released. Nothing that Sandy Berger has done will compare to Bush's idiocy.

[shockingelk]

5. benign neglect ...

I could see what he did as possibly only being a violation of archive procedure, I don't know the applicable laws. Maybe it's only being presented as criminal, and Berger had thought nothing of it. It's possible he didn't even know his actions were being investigated.

But Berger has been handling classified documents for decades, it would be habit for him not to exhibit "benign neglect". I just can't see it being unintentional if he was indeed breaking the law.

[bigtree]

6. Motive?

Where is the burden of proof? Innuuendo may be sufficient to continue the public indictment, but the media standard of unsourced, unsubstantiated rumormongering will not be appropriate in any official determinination of whether or not he broke the law. I believe there had to be a knowing intent of Sandy to commit a crime for any prosecution to progress and ultimately succeed.

The FBI has been sitting on this investigation since last winter. I think they should be pressed to come to some conclusion. I appears that they are in no hurry to charge him. They should, however, move quickly to resolve their concerns before it snows again, and the leaders of their administration compliant organization are left out in the cold.

[shockingelk]

7. I'm not familiar with the applicable laws

So don't have an opinion on whether what Berger has admitted he did was a crime or not.

There's too much strange stuff going on at Berger's end alone for there not to be more to the story than than what is now known.

I can't explain a motive other than guessing he wished to cover for someone or wished to expose someone, but I wouldn't be surprised if his actions were intentional. Again, he's handled classified document for decades and knows the procedures (and laws).

[bigtree]

8. That sort of speculation could just as easily be turned in Berger's favor

The only reason to doubt Berger's innocence seems to center around some political gain from the documents included with the reams that he took from the archives. Funny though, with almost all of the substance of the documents widely distributed among the commission members, and published and evaluated in at least one political book, there has been no discussion of any corroborating evidence of any Berger cover-up which can be backed up by the information therein.

I think the reason for the deliberate leak of the FBI investigation of Sandy Berger is an attempt to draw attention away from the facts in the coming report which will show that Berger specifically warned the Bush team of the specific threat from bin Laden and Al-Qaeda before 9-11. Bush's failure to act upon that information is certainly more damaging than some nebulous claims of criminal intent which, so far, have not been substantiated by facts brought out by the commission or any of Sandy Berger's detractors.

Funny that they won't talk about the specifics of the documents that he was supposed to be using improperly. I suspect these will come up in the context of Bush's failure to act and the Clinton administration's earnest pursuit of same. Smearing Berger beforehand appears to be a clumsy attempt to deflect from the facts surrounding Bush's ineptness, and Berger's dogged pursuit of terrorists.

[shockingelk]

9. One document has been spoken of

A followup to thwarting millennium attacks. And it's strange strange strange that that's what's coming from the archivists, but Berger admits to losing "a few" documents.

And oops, I see I left out a few key words in my first post - I'm speculating whether he removed any documents that would expose Bush.

There's too much strangeness that I'm prepared for any twist - anything is possible.