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April 07, 2005
The Wall Street Journal: Temporary Insanity?
The Wall Street Journal had an editorial yesterday on the Sandy Berger case entitled "Berger's Plea: The Justice Department shows admirable restraint." To say that this is not a promising beginning is a brass-bound understatement. After a wan attempt to establish credibility by invoking its record of criticism of the Clinton administration, the authors then careen from one nonsensical conclusion to another. First (emphases throughout are mine):
Some of the documents Mr. Berger honed[sic] in on were multiple iterations of a sensitive "after-action" report on the Clinton Administration's response to the al Qaeda threat around the year 2000 celebrations, and he was obviously lying (he now admits) when he said last year that the documents had been taken inadvertently and as part of an "honest mistake."
So the Journal along with the Justice Department evidently agree that the documents were removed quite deliberately and with intent. Of course, the intent is the 2000 pound elephant sitting in the corner. And the "mulitiple iterations" of the report is a topic that appears to throw the Journal into a fit of the swooning vapors.
After a long investigation, however, Justice says the picture that emerged is of a man who knowingly and recklessly violated the law in handling classified documents, but who was not trying to hide any evidence.
Sandy Berger graduated from Harvard law school, was a partner of a Washington law firm, held a high position in Cyrus Vance's State Department, and as National Security Advisor for Bill Clinton, "coordinate[d] the President's national security team, including the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."
Are we then to believe Justice's assertion that this same man, who "knowingly and recklessly violated the law", did so out of carelessness, or a venal desire to work in the comfort of his law offices? He surely knew the risks involved; he knew that getting caught might very well put an end to any future cabinet position--yet he proceeded anyway. Perhaps he knew that if the contents of some of those "multiple iterations" referred to above were to become known, his chance of being appointed a future Secretary of State would vanish.
So we [at the WSJ] called Justice Department Public Integrity chief prosecutor Noel Hillman, who assured us that Mr. Berger did not deny any documents to history. "There is no evidence that he intended to destroy originals," said Mr. Hillman. "There is no evidence that he did destroy originals."
What a malodorous red herring--no one is worried about the originals. Why would the Archives store multiple copies of a document if they were truly identical to the original? It's the National Archives, not the National Bulk Records Storage. The Archives staff must have kept those multiple copies because their handwritten notes rendered each of them unique documents--each worth keeping in and of itself. The Journal continues quoting Hillman:
"We have objectively and affirmatively confirmed that the contents of all the five documents at issue exist today and were made available to the 9/11 Commission."
Is the 9/11 Commission the focus of all this? Not to me, it isn't. It certainly is worth finding out if the commission members saw all five versions of those documents. But again, this is obfuscation: The point is that those versions of the original are now no longer available to any subsequent examiner.
The Journal lurches to its conclusion:
Lesser officials have received harsher penalties for more minor transgressions, so a complete airing of the facts will show the public that justice is being done.
How so? The basic facts are already well known, and I don't think any justice has been done to date. What evidence do we have that: 1) the full story will indeed come out; and 2) the judge will impose a sentence worthy of the crime?
But given the minimal damage from the crime, this looks to be a case where prosecutors have shown some commendable restraint against a high-powered political figure.
And finally, what is the basis for the Journal's assertion that "minimal damage" has been done? This is only a discussion of national security policy that led to the most destructive attack on US soil by a foreign power. And why is restraint automatically "commendable" in dealing with a "high-powered political figure"?
Reread Sandy Berger's resume. He is no buffoon--he knew exactly what he wanted to do, and he proceeded in spite of the risks he, above almost anyone else, had to be aware of. We need to get to the bottom of this. We cannot let this story die.
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