Clinton Legacy

This morning’s Washington Post explores the unanswered questions regarding former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger and his inexplicably light punishment for admittedly breaking national security guidelines during his “review” of anti-terrorism documents from the Clinton White House in the National Archives leading up to his testimony before the 9/11 commission. Berger was accused and convicted of removing, hiding and later destroying copies of a 2001 terrorism study. Unfortunately, these charges are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the potential damage of Berger’s four visits to the archives. I am not a sky-is-falling conspiracy theorist, but I am also not babe-in-woods when it comes to human nature. I have no doubt that there was a great deal of pressure from Clinton in regards to his legacy and how it might be harmed by revelations that he was negligent in the arena of terrorism. The incontrovertible facts are as follows:

• Berger did take copies of a highly classified terrorism document and hid them at a construction site for later disposal.
• Berger was wrongly given unsupervised access to classified, original/uncatalogued, internal documents from the archives that related to the Clinton Administration’s knowledge of and response to anti-terrorism intelligence.
• Neither Justice Department investigators nor National Archive employees can say with any degree of certainty whether any original documents reviewed by Berger were also taken in the theft to which he has already plead guilty.

These truths, coupled with the fact that the 9/11 Commission was not given this information during the hearings (though it was known by Justice Dept.) when they might have questioned Berger about his actions under oath, makes the investigation’s findings highly suspect.

To add insult to injury, were the official in question named Rove instead of Berger, there would be no end to the attention these “coincidences” would receive in the media and Congress. If you don't think that is a fair assessment see the Libby trial