IAP Political Forum

How... after Norman Hsu, who was caught rounding up illegal cash for the Clinton campaign, could she blatantly hire Sandypants burgler, who stole (in his pants and socks)original documents from the National Archives that he was allowed to view as part of preparation to his testimony before the 9/11 investigation committee! He was convicted. Does this trouble you? Are we and the victims of 9/11 missing something here?

Story:

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Sandy Berger, who stole highly classified terrorism documents from the National Archives, destroyed them and lied to investigators, is now an adviser to presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. Berger, who was fired from John Kerry’s presidential campaign when the scandal broke in 2004, has assumed a similar role in Clinton’s campaign, even though his security clearance has been suspended until September 2008. This is raising eyebrows even among Clinton’s admirers. “It shows poor judgment and a lack of regard for Berger’s serious misdeeds,” said law professor Jonathan Adler of Case Western Reserve University, who nonetheless called Clinton “by far the most impressive candidate in the Democratic field.”

Adler told The Examiner that it is “simply incomprehensible to me that a serious contender for the presidency would rely upon him as a key foreign policy advisor.”

He added: “If Senator Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee, at some point she will begin to receive national security briefings that will include sensitive information. At such a point, continuing to keep Berger on board as a key advisor, where he might have access to sensitive material, would be beyond incomprehensible.”

The Clinton campaign declined to comment.
Berger has admitted stealing documents from the National Archives in advance of the 9/11 Commission hearings in 2003. The documents, written by White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, were a “tough review” of the Clinton administration’s shortcomings in dealing with terrorism, Clarke’s lawyer told the Washington Post.

On several occasions, Berger stuffed highly classified documents into his pants and socks before spiriting them out of the Archives building in Washington, according to investigators. On one occasion, upon reaching the street, he hid documents under a construction trailer after checking the windows of the Archives and Justice Department buildings to make sure he was not being watched.

Berger came back later and retrieved the documents, taking them home and cutting them up with scissors. Two days later, he was informed by Archive employees that his removal of documents had been detected.

“Berger panicked because he realized he was caught,” said a report by the National Archives inspector general, which also recounted his initial reaction. “Berger lied.”

Berger also lied to the public, telling reporters he made an “honest mistake” by “inadvertently” taking the documents, which he blamed on his own “sloppiness.” Bill Clinton vouched for the explanation for Berger, who served as his national security adviser.

Berger later conceded: “I was giving a benign explanation for what was not benign.”

The Justice Department initially said Berger stole only copies of classified documents and not originals. But the House Government Reform Committee later revealed that an unsupervised Berger had been given access to classified files of original, uncopied, uninventoried documents on terrorism. Several Archives officials acknowledged that Berger could have stolen any number of items and they “would never know what, if any, original documents were missing.”

At his sentencing in September 2005, Berger was fined $50,000, placed on probation for two years and stripped of his security clearance for three years.

I swear, this lady is TRYING to ruin her campaign.

Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly are going to have a FIELD DAY over this...

Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly are going to have a FIELD DAY over this...

Politicas aside, I think the government offered the victims of 9/11 an 800-page, nameless whitewash as to exactly who and what let them down. This doesn't look good, even if it is..

Imagine if Bush hired a convicted criminal to pick his tie out every morning.

agreed, she is already in the lead so why add controversy?  ???

Wait, so this guy can actually get his security clearnece back this time next year? That's horse $***.

Clinton wasn't going to win to begin with. But this just adds to the already very long list of her issues.

Trust me, I don't want her president... but she's got WAY too good of a chance... and if Hsu didn't break her or the closet full of inacessible documents... then this is nothing.

Most people probably won't even remember the "HamBergler".

if she wins the nomination i think i might actually vote for her breaking me string of republican only streak.  :-X

its her health care plan that is winning my vote.
absolutly nothing else.

smite me if you must but im only being honest :angel:

No offence, but why would you vote for someone because of ONE policy? That's as dumb as voting for her because she's a woman. And I hear that talk all the time "Finally a woman. I'm voting for her". Well what about her policies, what do you think of them? "Uhh I dunno".

Clinton is going to win the nomination for the Democrats. But she won't win the presidential election.

There is no evidence, much less proof, that Berger stole original documents. It was just copies. And while what he did was wrong and he deserved the punishment he got, it was only a misdemeanor charge. I think you are making a mountain out of a mole hill.

Oh... and where is your link?


Well... I would be relieved if all the participants in the Iran/Contra scandal who are now working for the government under Bush were just picking out his tie but they are doing a lot more than that.


http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020311/corn (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020311/corn)

Does this trouble you SuperChicken?

At least she's getting her controversies out early.

Actually... that is a good point...


I never thought you a "federal healthcare" kinda guy.

Buzz, I could explain to you how the Iran Contra Affair was the right thing to do long before you could explain to me how stealing from the national archives was the right thing to do.

The only one (I think)involved who is advising the President was Bush41...who was never charged with anything. Whereas Sandy recieved a misdemeanor on the condition he take a ploygraph test, which he never did. I'm looking foward to you, and Mr. Berger, and the Clintons being exonerated when the result of that polygraph are released. ................................

WASHINGTON —  The Justice Department should administer a polygraph test to former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger to find out what documents he took from the National Archives in 2002 and 2003, Rep. Tom Davis wrote in a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales dated Monday.

Davis, ranking Republican on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, is leading a group of 18 lawmakers who say the Justice Department has been "remarkably incurious" about Berger's decision to remove documents relating to the Sept. 11 commission's inquiry into his role in helping prevent terror attacks during the Clinton administration.

"It is extraordinarily important that the Justice Department avail itself of its rights under the plea agreement and administer a polygraph examination to Mr. Berger to question him about the extent of his thievery. This may be the only way for anyone to know whether Mr. Berger denied the 9/11 commission and the public the complete account of the Clinton administration's actions or inactions during the lead up to the terrorist attacks on the United States," Davis wrote.

The letter was signed by all Republican members of Congress.

Berger admitted to taking documents on two of the four occasions he went to the National Archives to bone up on his responses for the Sept. 11 commission on his inquiry into how intelligence and law enforcement communities failed to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States. He said he hid some of them at a construction site near the archives building in Washington.

Berger agreed to take a polygraph test as part of a plea deal reached in September 2005....


Fox News.

Also (excuse me) "Socks" Berger, before he was advisor to Bill Clinton, was a lobbyist....who worked for....the government of China.  :o

No you can't. Because I would never try to rationalize stealing classified documents. And if you want to try and rationalize supplying weapons to both sides of a war without sounding like a war loving idiot republican, go right ahead.

And you didn't answer my question... Does the fact that law breakers are working for Bush trouble you?

You think? So... John Negroponte, our Deputy Secretary of State, doesn't advise Bush on anything? And he never advised Bush as ambassador to the UN or Iraq? You didn't even read the article I linked to did you? Or was it all just over your head?

And just because Bush Sr. was never charged doesn't mean he didn't do anything wrong. I hate to break the news to you but the fact that Bush was intimately involved in the Iran/Contra scandal came out after he lost the election to Clinton.

 
Not true. Berger agreed to take a polygraph test as PART OF a plea deal. The polygraph test was not a requirement as you suggest.

And do you know it is a rule around here that if you cut and paste someone else's work you have to provide a link?


That's not entirely true. Berger worked for the law firm Hogan & Hartson who lobbied for the trade office of the Chinese government. But if you insist Berger worked for the government of China then by your logic Dick Cheney worked for Iran.  :laugh:

because that 1 issue is more important then any other issue(s) the other canadates are running for (R) or (D)

absolutly! heath care should be a right not a privlege.

You are playing the  moral equivalency game, and it adds nothing. Besides that, you,re losing. you haven't named a single person who was convicted, except maybe Poindexter,...whom you didn't name anyway. (who had his convictions overturned in a court of law, and he never advised President Bush44, anyway.) ...you've named no one that equates to hiring Sandy to the exact same post he was fired from in the last campaign for stealing documents from the national archives. You state Berger did not steal original documents as if fact. and you condemn Bush41 "the criminal" as fact. What crime have you convicted him of?
I say that: "Sandy recieved a misdemeanor on the condition he take a ploygraph test, which he never did."
You say: "Not true. Berger agreed to take a polygraph test as PART OF a plea deal.
What's your point Buzz, do you have one?
I say that Berger was a lobbyist who worked for the Chinese government...Not true! you say, he was a worker who lobbied for the government of China.
What's your point Buzz? do you have one?

Have you ever spent one word here criticizing Clinton, or Praising Bush?

I say Clinton hires a convicted criminal as a high-level policy advisor.
What the fudge are you saying? ?
 

Hillary doesn't usually do anything that isn't well-thought out or planned, so maybe she has some hidden agenda. More likely, she just made good on an offer to an old friend and didn't think anyone would notice. But that doesn't make sense either, considering Republicans will attack anything she does at any given time. I'm not really sure what she's up to with this one.

I think Ms. Hillary can and should expect similar treatment that her and her colleagues have given Bush and the Republicans for the last dozen years. She won't be brutalized from the friendly confines of the MSM but there will be select pockets from which she should expect to be scrutinized....strongly.

She stepped in this one.

This treatment which, oddly enough, Bush and the Republicans earned by go after the Clinton's during Bill's presidency.   I guess the cycle continues.

(oh, to make this clear, I am for this scrutiny of Hillary, I just want to make sure Neue understands that it wasn't Hilary that started it, it goes back, probably, to the birth of this nation)

I'd say that it has taken a nose dive in the last 30 years. Not sure who it started with...Nixon perhaps.

Buzz, I would encourage you to find the source from which you received the impression that the Iran/Contra plan involved supplying weapons to both sides of the same war and re-evaluate its reliability.

Many Iran/Contra convictions were overturned and each was a political target who opposed a congressional policy of abandoning US allies in a communist state.

I doubt any singular person or event really started it.

It's just a bunch of people competing for more power, and if they have to act like petulous children to get it, then so be it.

Yes we are... and it was you that invited us all to play when you asked us to imagine if Bush had a convicted criminal picking out his tie every morning. I then pointed out that the Bush administration has what most people consider criminals doing much more important things in our government than just picking out ties. And since you obviously knew nothing about the law breakers who have been put in positions of authority under Bush and you made a comment that suggests that Bush doesn't have criminals working for him I then corrected this misinformation. So... it does add to this discussion.


I pointed out that Bush has hired people who have broken the law. So what if it wasn't exactly the same situation? So what if I didn't name all the law breakers by name? I provided an article that described who and what these people did. It isn't my fault you chose to not read the article. It looks to me like you don't want to face the facts.

And don't forget that most of the people that article talks about actually destroyed original documents and/or were successful in covering up much of the facts concerning the Iran/Contra scandal.

And so what if these criminals had their convictions over turned on technicalities? That doesn't make them any less of a law breaker.


There you go again... misstating the facts... I did not say that Berger did not steal original documents. I said their is no evidence or proof of this and that all we know for sure is that he stole copies.


I haven't convicted anyone. There are lots of crimes that go unprosecuted in this country. Just because Bush Sr. wasn't convicted doesn't mean he didn't do anything illegal. And don't forget that when all this was coming out Bush was president and as such was protected from prosecution. Now if you think that he didn't do anything wrong then tell us all why I am wrong. Good luck with that.


My point is that a polygraph test was not required for the plea deal. You are misstating the facts again. Is that really so hard to understand?


Again... you are misstating facts. Berger worked for a law firm who represented China.


What does that have anything to do with this discussion? Proving that I am biased doesn't disprove a thing I am saying. Try again!

Oh... and by the way I have criticized Clinton. :P


And again you are misstating the facts. Berger is not "high level". And that is what I am saying. You are trying to hype this whole issue up as if it is a big deal when it is in fact not. And as I have shown you do this by constantly misstating the facts.

I never said that the Iran/Contra plan was intended to supply both sides of the war with weapons. I was talking about how Reagan's administration was supporting both Iran and Iraq with weapons and/or support at the same time during the war.

All the convictions that were overturned were due to technicalities and others were pardoned by Bush. And just because some one was opposed to congress' policy of outlawing support of the Contras does not make what they did legal.