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WASHINGTON - 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 KerryÂ’s presidential campaign when the scandal broke in 2004, has assumed a similar role in ClintonÂ’s campaign, even though his security clearance has been suspended until September 2008. This is raising eyebrows even among ClintonÂ’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.”
“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.