REPORT SAYS BERGER HID ARCHIVE DOCUMENTS

WASHINGTON (AP) - Former national security adviser Sandy Berger removed classified documents from the National Archives in 2003 and hid them under a construction trailer, the Archives inspector general reported Wednesday.

The report was issued more than a year after Berger pleaded guilty and received a criminal sentence for removal of the documents.

Inspector General Paul Brachfeld reported that when Berger was confronted by Archives officials about the missing documents, he said it was possible he threw them in his office trash.

The report said that when Archives employees first suspected that Berger - who had been President Clinton's national security adviser - was removing classified documents from the Archives in the fall of 2003, they failed to notify any law enforcement agency.

Berger, who pleaded guilty to unlawfully removing and retaining classified documents, was fined $50,000, ordered to perform 100 hours of community service and was barred from access to classified material for three years.

Sandy Berger is a criminal. The only thing more criminal is the fact that Bush and his Justice Department let him get away with it. At the very least, he should be barred from having any access to any classified materials for the remainder of his life.

Obviously, we'll never know what was in the documents he destroyed, but it's more than likely he was trying to hide the mis-steps and out-and-out failures of his boss, Bill Clinton. Why would anyone take the Clintonites seriously anymore?

Reliapuindit adds: GREAT POST Popinjay! I'd only add this: since Berger deliberately hid and then lost or destroyed national secrets during an investigation by the 9/11 Commission, his criminal act actually had the effect of diminishing our ability to correct and improve national security. This makes Berger not only a criminal in my book, but a traitor. ALSO: Clinton tried to dismiss Berger's traitorous crime as the antics of a notoriously sloppy eccentric. Clinton said something to the effect that it didn't surprise him because he'd seen Berger's desk.

This attempt at a COVERUP (and to deliberately mislead the public) proves to me that Clinton KNEW Berger had committed a crime at the time and probably knew why, too - perhaps because THEY HAD ENTERED INTO A CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT IT.

UPDATE - 12/21/06: More than 24hrs later and Instapundit and Volokh Conspiracy agree with the Popinjay! Proving once again that TAB is the place to be!