Just goes to show you what having people in high places sticking up for you can do for you.

Sandy didn't even get a slap on the list, and I am amazed that in three years he gets the opportunity to go stuff some more classified documents in his pants.

Clearly this is all just an April Fool's ruse. Berger has to be going to prison and facing bigger fines.

The Fat Bastard is taking one for the team here, though not much of one. But don't be surprised if the team is a little bigger than just the Clinton Administration. Anything Berger is said to have known can also be expected to be in his briefing to the incoming Bushies. So in covering his ass, there's a decent chance he was covering Rice's also.

My Dad always told me these politicians have more in common with each other than with you or me, and they stick together. In watching how Bush shitcans notes on the Clinton pardons and how Clinton sticks with the party line re: Iraq, I suspect there's a lot of mutual ass-covering going on.

I tend to agree with your opinion that his stealing documents in that context is a betrayal of the nation. I think it's on th home plate of treason. I suppose redacting the record to give an opposition party cover or political advantage is not the same as doing so for a foreign power. I wouldn't give him the needle. But he does deserve some prison time and permanent revocation of his security clearance.

Stupid-but-sincere question: what steps, if any, would Berger have to undertake to regain a national security clearance when the 3 year suspension is up? How does that work?

Wouldn't he have to be "re-cleared" ( in which case, I suspect he would never regain his clearance, even if the mandatory suspension was no longer in effect), or would he, by virtue of his former position, have some sort of presumption of a right to a security clearance? I can't imagine the terms of his plea to include any automatic restoration of his security clearance.

So I'm still wondering what he was hiding. I'd have to think the worst, which to me would be the failure timely to take out Bin Laden because Slick knew he'd be accused of wagging the dog during Monicagate. Is that basically it?

So I'm still wondering what he was hiding. I'd have to think the worst, which to me would be the failure timely to take out Bin Laden because Slick knew he'd be accused of wagging the dog during Monicagate. Is that basically it?

...So I'm still wondering what he was hiding....

Powerline says

Obviously, he was trying to destroy documents that showed the negligence of the Clinton administration--of which he was a key member--in dealing with the threat of terrorism.

I also got a kick out of this article where Berger simultaneously says he'll plead guilty to this charge and then claims the episode was "'an honest mistake' and denied criminal wrongdoing". Does he really think that after Clinton taught us to parse everything said, that he can slip that one by us?

The last paragraph of this AP article consists of this gem...

Many Democrats, including former President Clinton, suggested that politics was behind disclosure of the probe only days before the release of the Sept. 11 commission report, which Republicans feared would hurt President Bush.

This is like the Palestinians claiming that the Jooooos sent those Saudi's to hijack those planes to kill those people in NYC. Absurd! It appears that the Democrats will defend even the most indefensible of their actions.

As a lowly Navy E5 who holds a security clearance and has to keep squeaky clean so not to lose it, this pisses me off a great deal. He is putting personal ambition and party ahead of national security. Revocation of clearance is just where I'd start.

Cripes!

Trying to find the answer to my own question about restoration of his revoked national security clearance after three years, I found out that he can have his clearance restored even before the three years expire.

link

While the plea agreement requires Berger to give up his secret security clearance for three years, it allows him to have his clearance reviewed and restored within that time if the government asks him to serve on a panel or in another position with access to secret material, associates said.

This bugs me. It REALLY bugs me (and I will announce that on my blog sooner or later).

I deal with classified information. Had I EVER stuffed classified documents in my pants, taken them home, destroyed them, and covered it up, I'd have my clearance yanked for life AND be put in jail. What a double standard. My guess is that Berger had documents I'll never be allowed to see, either.

Bill, keep in mind that pretty much any of the crimes that Berger could have been convicted on would have required proof beyond a reasonable doubt of his subjective criminal intent.

Remember, too, that Berger would have had at his disposal unlimited resources and top legal talent, plus an outside-the-courtroom media blitz that Michael Jackson can only dream about.

Then stop and think how you'd feel if there'd been no plea bargain, and Berger had been acquitted. You and I may think that he's guilty as sin and deserved a far stiffer punishment, but neither you nor I were gonna be on the jury — and we can't rule out the possibility of an acquittal at all.

The prosecutors here got as part of the deal an acknowledgement that Berger acted intentionally, not as a klutz. And most importantly, they got a conviction. When and if Berger's name is ever proposed for any public role in the future, then notwithstanding all of his newpaper interview equivocations and spin, there will be a guilty plea on record. Hence the title of my more extended take on this on my own blog, Beldar on Berger: If he comes back, blame politicians, not the prosecutors.