Kerry/Clinton Aide Steals 9/11 Documents

In response to the source of what the documents were, the source is the Washington Post. Also found it insteresting that Kevin Drum in the Washington Monthly suggests that the leaking was done by the Democrats. Kevin Drum is a very liberal commentator who used to write the weblog Calpundit and now writes a column for the Washington Monthly. Also on the web is the comment that since the first appearance in the media of this story was John Solomon who was the favorite reporter of Lanny Davis, late of the Bill Clinton administration, that Lanny himself might have been the one who leaked the story. The Washington Post article follows:

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.

By then, however, Archives officials had served notice that there were other documents missing. Despite searching his home and office, Berger could not find them. By January, the FBI had been brought in, and Berger found himself in a criminal investigation -- one that he chose not to tell Kerry's campaign about until this week.

But three days after the disclosure of the Berger investigation, many of the basic facts of the controversy remain unknown or are contested, as well as more subjective questions about how seriously his lapse should be regarded or its effect on politics this year.

A government official with knowledge of the investigation said Archives employees took action promptly after noticing a missing document in September. This official said an Archives employee called former White House deputy counsel Bruce Lindsey, who is former president Bill Clinton's liaison to the National Archives. The Archives employee said documents were missing and would have to be returned.

Under this version of events -- which Breuer denied -- documents were returned the following day from Berger's office to the Archives. Not included in these papers, the government official said, were any drafts of the document at the center of this week's controversy.

The documents that Berger has acknowledged taking -- some of which remain missing -- are different drafts of a January 2000 "after-action review" of how the government responded to terrorism plots at the turn of the millennium. The document was written by White House anti-terrorism coordinator Richard A. Clarke, at Berger's direction when he was in government.

Lindsey, now in private legal practice in Little Rock, did not return telephone and e-mail messages.

The government source said the Archives employees were deferential toward Berger, given his prominence, but were worried when he returned to view more documents on Oct. 2. They devised a coding system and marked the documents they knew Berger was interested in canvassing, and watched him carefully. They knew he was interested in all the versions of the millennium review, some of which bore handwritten notes from Clinton-era officials who had reviewed them. At one point an Archives employee even handed Berger a coded draft and asked whether he was sure he had seen it.

At the end of the day, Archives employees determined that that draft and all four or five other versions of the millennium memo had disappeared from the files, this source said.

This source and another government official said that archivists gave Berger use of a special room for reviewing the documents. He was examining the documents to recommend to the Bush administration which papers should be released to the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Archives spokeswoman Susan Cooper said that employees closely monitor anyone cleared to review classified presidential materials.

The contradictions over essential facts, such as when Berger was first alerted to missing documents, have characterized the controversy this week.

Sources have told The Washington Post, and other news organizations, that Berger was witnessed stuffing papers into his clothing. Through attorneys and spokesmen, Berger has denied doing that.

Berger has known for months that he was in potential jeopardy. Breuer was hired in October, and in January former White House press secretary Joe Lockhart was enlisted to remain on standby if a public controversy blossomed. But Berger allies said he did not inform Kerry because he had resolved to work privately with Justice Department officials, and received assurances that these officials would treat the matter confidentially.

The controversy is likely to continue, even after Berger relinquished his role as informal Kerry adviser on Tuesday. House Government Reform Committee Chairman Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) said yesterday that he plans an investigation.

"These allegations are deeply troubling, and it's our constitutional responsibility to find out what happened and why," Davis said in a statement. "It boggles the mind to imagine how a former national security advisor walked off with this kind of material in his pants, or wherever on his body he carried it. At best, we're looking at tremendously irresponsible handling of highly classified information -- some of which, I understand, has not yet been located."

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said that "a few individuals" in the White House counsel's office knew about the investigation before news reports.

There was bitterness among Berger allies this week in the timing of the disclosure and the wealth of detail -- inaccurate detail, they say -- about the allegations.

"This is a terrible experience for him, and he's embarrassed by his mistakes," Lockhart said, "but I think he also feels a sense of injustice that after building a reputation as a tireless defender of his country that many Republicans would try to assassinate his character to pursue their own ends."

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

Your description of these documents

>>These documents, if they are the Millenial inspection of seaports, airports, etc, were to be used to develop a total security system (really part of the Homeland Security System) and for that reason they are classified and code word classified at that.<<

The Washington Post description of the documents, on which you say you relied:

>>The documents that Berger has acknowledged taking -- some of which remain missing -- are different drafts of a January 2000 "after-action review" of how the government responded to terrorism plots at the turn of the millennium. The document was written by White House anti-terrorism coordinator Richard A. Clarke, at Berger's direction when he was in government.<<

What you are doing here is a reverse Condi Rice. Bush gets a memo in August 2001 that says Bin Laden is about to attack, and actions need to be planned. Rice tells everyone that it was a historical document, until the truth comes out and she turns out to be an intellectual Sally Hemings. You're taking a historical document, and trying to make it into a grand plan by the Clinton administration that the Bush people needed to prevent apocalypse. Kind of silly, isn't it?

Since thatis what Richard Clarke testified to at the 9/11 hearings and the Clintons never implemented it or passed it on to the Bush administration, seems about right to me. As to the Aug memo, if you read it it makes no sense at all. There will be an OBL attack sometime in the future at some place in the country using airplanes. Could you from that make a plan to safeguard the WTC on 9/11 as being the vital date and time? In fact even if they said it would be in NYC, with the thousands of flights daily in and out what flight would it be? You are just trying to defend the indefensible and it don't work!!

>Since thatis what Richard Clarke testified to at the 9/11

>hearings and the Clintons never implemented it or passed it on

>to the Bush administration, seems about right to me. As to

>the Aug memo, if you read it it makes no sense at all. There

>will be an OBL attack sometime in the future at some place in

>the country using airplanes. Could you from that make a plan

>to safeguard the WTC on 9/11 as being the vital date and time?

> In fact even if they said it would be in NYC, with the

>thousands of flights daily in and out what flight would it be?

> You are just trying to defend the indefensible and it don't

>work!!

Well, maybe if said pretendident hadn't been ON VACATION for the whole friggin month of August and hadn't IGNORED Clarke, maybe there wouldn't have been an attack. Defending Bush is defending the indefensible. Much like his National Guard service, Bush was AWOL when he needed to be doing his Supreme Court appointed job.

You are forgetting that Clarke had moved his field of interest to internet security by this time and was no longer concerned with the border and terrorist security at his own request. Therefore your snide remarks are totally off the mark.

>Since thatis what Richard Clarke testified to at the 9/11

>hearings and the Clintons never implemented it or passed it on

>to the Bush administration, seems about right to me. As to

>the Aug memo, if you read it it makes no sense at all. There

>will be an OBL attack sometime in the future at some place in

>the country using airplanes. Could you from that make a plan

>to safeguard the WTC on 9/11 as being the vital date and time?

> In fact even if they said it would be in NYC, with the

>thousands of flights daily in and out what flight would it be?

> You are just trying to defend the indefensible and it don't

>work!!

HUH??? Never passed it on to the Bush Administration? That's what Richard Clarke was trying to do for months without success. Although the 9/11 report stated Clinton and Bush disagree on this point, Clinton states he did tell George Bush about the threat of Al Quada. George doesn't remember that part of the conversation. Personally, given that Clinton was "obsessed" (9/11 Report verbage, not mine) with Al Quada, and Clarke could not get anyone in the new Bush Administration to deal with this topic, Clinton's view of this detail has much more weight than that of Bush.

I cannot understand how total inaction can be defended on the basis of lack of specifics about a terrorist attack. The only way a terrorist attack can be successful is for it to be a surprise. If you take your post to its likely conclusion, why do anything about any threat unless the date, time and place are known in detail?

>You are forgetting that Clarke had moved his field of

>interest to internet security by this time and was no longer

>concerned with the border and terrorist security at his own

>request. Therefore your snide remarks are totally off the

>mark.

What typical reichwing horsecrap. Clarke tried for MONTHS without success to get Shrubbery, the Smirk and herr AshKKKroft to listen to no avail. Your pretendident was asleep at the wheel.

One of the things that interests me in this debate is the two-sided nature of the criticism of the current administration. On the one hand, they should have acted on these vague, nonspecific warnings to prevent Al Quaeda from accomplishing its terrorist goals. On the other hand, when the government does act on vague, nonspecific warnings to prevent terrorist acts, it is ridiculed for being at best silly (e.g., the green, orange and red lights) and at worst proto-fascist.

You can't have it both ways. If the government is to act on nonspecific information, it is obligated to set up precisely the kind of surveillance and control network now being constructed. If it accedes to the criticism of this policy, it has no choice but to sit and wait for things to happen.

I am not a big fan of George Bush, but if he is replaced and another policy instituted, it will still have to grapple with the problem that both the Clinton and Bush administrations had to deal with: How to protect the nation from people who, for religious and ideological reasons that are not negotiable, want to do us massive harm simply because of who we are.

Both administrations apparently chose the passive path before 9/11, with the results we now see. That is really not an option anymore, and if Kerry even hints that he will return to that path, by November he will be toast. My guess is that he is at least as serious about this problem as George Bush is, and while he will take the support of the hate-Bushers and ride it as far as it will take him, it is no platform for a government that has to protect the nation.

So my question to the opposition to Bush is: Well, just exactly what would you do? Perhaps a cosmetic change at Justice and a little less of the M&M approach at Homeland Security, and no more unprovoked foreign wars. But in fact, what the Bush people are doing is pretty much what we will continue to need to do: Look and listen carefully, even intrusively; question people who don't want to be questioned; detain people who seem to be a threat; and act when we see that there is a better than even chance that inaction will result in something worse.

You can bet that this situation will not go away just because a democrat is elected. If Kerry becomes president he will face at least as terrible a set of choices that Bush has faced. Kerry will have to respond, and will make his share of terrible mistakes.

Well, here's an idea, let's actually go after people who had something to do with the terrorism that hit our soil. We were on the right path with Afghanistan. It was only when Bush veered away from the war on terrorism to invade Iraq, a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with Al Qaeda or 9/11 DEPSITE the MisAdministration's best attempts to link those things to Iraq.

John Kerry can be a uniter, not a divider.

Personally, I don't know if 9/11 was preventable. In general, a large majority of the US population didn't pay attention to international politics before 9/11 (myself included), and, 9/11 was a wake up call.

With that being said, there is a substantial difference between the reaction of the Clinton and Bush administrations to intelligence warnings of a terrorist attack. Unfortunately, the Clinton administration could not do all they wanted to do because of other events of the time - Monica Lewinsky, "Wag the Dog", etc. I am not saying, nor do I mean to imply, everything the Clinton administration did was correct. They could have done more.

In contract to the activity of the Clinton Administration, the Bush Administration ignored most (if not all) terrorist warnings through 2001. My personal opinion is the Bush Administration didn't want to do anything suggested by the outgoing Clinton Administration, and, the Bush Administration was still in "cold war" mentality.

For the sake of argument, I'll assume that everything that occurred prior to 9/11 is history and we need to learn from history. The 9/11 attacks did wake people up to the threat of terrorism.

I do have a major issue with the Bush Administration's reaction to the 9/11 attack. First, the president had no idea what to do. I don't accept the "keep the nation calm" explanation. Second, it took a month to attack Afghanistan - giving Al Quida lots of time to escape and regroup. Finally, all the "evidence" pointing to a working relationship between Iraq and Al Quida was weak before the declaration of war. I thought the attack on Iraq was a mistake from the beginning - even when Bush had the support of a large part of the country. As Bush was preparing to delcare war the UN inspectors kept stating they've not found any WMD and kept asking for more time. Bush didn't want to hear this.

The attack on Iraq and attacks on Iraqi citizens has done nothing but helped terrorist groups recruit new members. I have a difficult time believing a large terrorist group would be created because they "hate democrocy." It seems much more likely recruiting terrorists is easier with the argument of "they (the US) wants our oil, they'll attack us without provocation", etc.

Putting all this together, I personally believe 9/11 was used as an excuse to attack Iraq, which was part of the Administration's plan for many months. Members of the Bush Administration ignored any information that countered their conclusions. I don't think this is a matter of acting on non specific threats - I think it's a problem of not evaluating the information available with an open mind and taking actions based on information available.

>One of the things that interests me in this debate is the

>two-sided nature of the criticism of the current

>administration. On the one hand, they should have acted on

>these vague, nonspecific warnings to prevent Al Quaeda from

>accomplishing its terrorist goals. On the other hand, when the

>government does act on vague, nonspecific warnings to prevent

>terrorist acts, it is ridiculed for being at best silly (e.g.,

>the green, orange and red lights) and at worst proto-fascist.

>

>You can't have it both ways. If the government is to act on

>nonspecific information, it is obligated to set up precisely

>the kind of surveillance and control network now being

>constructed. If it accedes to the criticism of this policy,

>it has no choice but to sit and wait for things to happen.

>

>I am not a big fan of George Bush, but if he is replaced and

>another policy instituted, it will still have to grapple with

>the problem that both the Clinton and Bush administrations had

>to deal with: How to protect the nation from people who, for

>religious and ideological reasons that are not negotiable,

>want to do us massive harm simply because of who we are.

>

>Both administrations apparently chose the passive path before

>9/11, with the results we now see. That is really not an

>option anymore, and if Kerry even hints that he will return to

>that path, by November he will be toast. My guess is that he

>is at least as serious about this problem as George Bush is,

>and while he will take the support of the hate-Bushers and

>ride it as far as it will take him, it is no platform for a

>government that has to protect the nation.

>

>So my question to the opposition to Bush is: Well, just

>exactly what would you do? Perhaps a cosmetic change at

>Justice and a little less of the M&M approach at Homeland

>Security, and no more unprovoked foreign wars. But in fact,

>what the Bush people are doing is pretty much what we will

>continue to need to do: Look and listen carefully, even

>intrusively; question people who don't want to be questioned;

>detain people who seem to be a threat; and act when we see

>that there is a better than even chance that inaction will

>result in something worse.

>

>You can bet that this situation will not go away just because

>a democrat is elected. If Kerry becomes president he will

>face at least as terrible a set of choices that Bush has

>faced. Kerry will have to respond, and will make his share of

>terrible mistakes.

Stop! Thief!

1. No original documents left the archieve at any time.

2. All the documents which should have been at the availability of the 9/11 Commission remained available, either as originals or as copies of same.

3. No federal laws were broken. Rules (Policies and Procedures) of the National Archieve were broken.

4. No documents were "stuffed" or otherwise hidden in (or "down") Sandy Berger's pants or socks. He took hand written notes and "stuffed" these in his pant pockets. This is also a violation of National Archieve rules.

4. However, Sandy Berger clearly "broke" the rules on more than one occassion, so either he is (a) extremely careless, (b) extremely stupid, or © both. Especially, since he knew full well that what he had access to were copies.

5. This entire episode is akin to the whole Paul O'Neill "took" classified documents with him and offered them to 60 Minutes charges that were originally leveld against Secretary O'Neill to discredit both him and his books. It was later proven that the documents were requested by and granted to Mr. O'Neill and none were actually classified, only a cover page was mislabeled to a documents which should not have been nor was, in fact, classified.

6. Berger has been investigated by the Justice Department, the investigation remains open, but no "charges" of any kind are contemplated at this time because there would be no basis under which to charge him. As far as Berger and his attorney was concerned, the matter was concluded only to be conveniently "leaked."

As with Paul O'Neill as well as Mr. Wilson's wife (the CIA agent), one need only ask who would benefit from such a leak to wonder what is actually going on.

RE: Stop! Thief!

You still don't get it at all.

You are looking at the documents from a historical perspective. The originals are still there so there is no problem.

Think of it this way. There are two copies of the orders for the invasion of D-Day. One of them is picked up and carried out of the staff room. This document is inadvertently lost/destroyed/discarded. There is no problem because you still have the original and that is all that is important, to use your analogy. That the Germans might obtain the copy is not even considered in your analogy.

That is what this is all about. The copies or the original - makes no difference. The classification is still the same and the law broken is not the rule of the National Archives. The law broken is the National Security laws which make it a crime punishable by a fine of $50,000 and/or a jail term of up to 10 years to take classified documents out of a secure area without written permission/security measures. To then "inadvertently" or "not inadvertently" - doesn't matter, both the same - is also punishable in the same manner. If he brought them all back and could prove that they never left his presence and were not looked at by anyone not cleared and not entitled by reason of needing to know the information, then maybe he could get his hands slapped. He did not do this. He did lose a copy and admitted that he did. This makes it more than a slap on the hand incident and I for one hope he gets it - not because of who he is, but because of all the people over the years who did little things and got jailed for them. What he did is definitely cause for punishment.

RE: Stop! Thief!

>I for one hope he gets it

>- not because of who he is, but because of all the people over

>the years who did little things and got jailed for them.

Name one.

Republic Senator Does The Same

Investigators Concluded Shelby Leaked Message

Justice Dept. Declined To Prosecute Case

By Allan Lengel and Dana Priest

Washington Post Staff Writers

Thursday, August 5, 2004; Page A17

Federal investigators concluded that Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) divulged classified intercepted messages to the media when he was on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, according to sources familiar with the probe.

Specifically, Fox News chief political correspondent Carl Cameron confirmed to FBI investigators that Shelby verbally divulged the information to him during a June 19, 2002, interview, minutes after Shelby's committee had been given the information in a classified briefing, according to the sources, who declined to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the case.

Cameron did not air the material. Moments after Shelby spoke with Cameron, he met with CNN reporter Dana Bash, and about half an hour after that, CNN broadcast the material, the sources said. CNN cited "two congressional sources" in its report.

The FBI and the U.S. attorney's office pursued the case, and a grand jury was empaneled, but nobody has been charged with any crime. Last month it was revealed that the Justice Department had decided to forgo a criminal prosecution, at least for now, and turned the matter over to the Senate Ethics Committee.

The Justice Department declined to comment on why it was no longer pursuing the matter criminally. The Senate ethics panel also declined to comment on its investigation.

Yesterday, Shelby's press secretary, Virginia Davis, issued this statement: "Senator Shelby served as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee for eight years and as Chairman for five and a half years. He has a full understanding of the importance of protecting our nation's secrets, and he has never knowingly compromised classified information. He is unaware of any evidence to the contrary.

"This matter has been under investigation for two years. The Justice Department has not taken any action other than, only recently, to refer the matter to the Senate Ethics Committee. Other than the letter from the Ethics Committee describing the subject of the reference in general terms, Senator Shelby has not been informed of any specific allegations. He looks forward to the opportunity to respond to the Committee's concerns at the appropriate time."

The disclosure involved two messages that were intercepted by the National Security Agency on the eve of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but were not translated until Sept. 12. The Arabic-language messages said "The match is about to begin" and "Tomorrow is zero hour." The Washington Post, citing senior U.S. intelligence officials, reported the same messages in its June 20, 2002, editions.

National security officials were outraged by the leak, and moments after the CNN broadcast a CIA official chastised committee members who had by then reconvened to continue the closed-door hearing.

Intelligence officials, who consider intercepted communications among the most closely guarded secrets, said the breach proved that Congress could not be trusted with classified information. But experts in electronic surveillance said the information about the NSA's intercepts contained nothing harmful because it did not reveal the source of the information or the methods used to gather it.

Vice President Cheney upbraided the Senate and House committee chairmen in separate phone calls the next day, and White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said President Bush had deep concerns about "anything that could harm our ability to maintain sources and methods, and anything that could interfere with America's ability to fight the war on terrorism."

The panels' chairmen, Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), responded immediately by requesting a Justice Department investigation into the disclosure, an unusual move that brought criticism from other members of Congress.

The FBI asked 17 senators to turn over phone records, appointment calendars and schedules. The FBI probe included an interview with a staff member on the intelligence committee who said that Shelby was trying to leak the information to show the shortcomings of the intelligence community, the sources said. Shelby had called repeatedly for the resignation of then-CIA Director George J. Tenet, whom he said was not up to the job.

Cameron confirmed this week that FBI agents interviewed him on several occasions and asked whether Shelby leaked the information to him. He said they also asked if he saw the senator walk off with CNN's Bash after talking to him.

"Yes, the FBI and the Justice Department came to me to ask me all that information," he said. "I will confirm to you that I was asked all those questions."

But he said he told investigators, "What doesn't go on the air I don't discuss, and we don't disclose our sources."

He said, "When they continued to press me, that's when I got it kicked up to the lawyers."

Cameron, in an interview yesterday, said FBI agents told him they had asked the Justice Department to subpoena him before the grand jury. There was "a lot of talk about getting" a grand jury subpoena, he said, but one was never issued.

Bash, who declined to be interviewed by the FBI, said yesterday: "I cannot comment on it." FBI spokesman Ed Cogswell also declined to comment.

The Shelby probe was one of several ongoing leak investigations, including one trying to determine who leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer, Valerie Plame, to columnist Robert Novak.