Equal Treatment Under Law

John Fund, writing in the OpinionJournal Political Diary, says "Life's a Beach" for Sandy Berger.

Yesterday's report by the Inspector General for the National Archives makes it more obvious than ever that Sandy Berger, President Clinton's former National Security Adviser, got off easily in his document-filching case. Mr. Berger pleaded guilty last year to a misdemeanor charge of improperly removing classified material from the Archives. As part of a plea agreement, federal prosecutors asked him to pay a fine of only $10,000; an outraged judge bumped that up to a $50,000 fine.

It's now clear Mr. Berger is lucky to have stayed out of jail. The Inspector General's report found that the paper he stole outlined the government's knowledge of terrorist threats in the U.S. in the final months of the Clinton administration -- documents of some interest to the 9/11 Commission that Mr. Berger was preparing to testify before. He admitted to investigators that he later retrieved the documents from their hiding place and brought them to his office, where he tore some up and placed them in the trash.

Mr. Berger originally maintained his actions were "an honest mistake" rather than an attempt to cover up aspects of the Clinton administration's counterterrorism efforts. But Rep. Tom Davis, the outgoing chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, told C-SPAN this morning that Mr. Berger may have taken working documents for which no copies exist. "There is absolutely no way to determine if Berger swiped any of these original documents. Consequently, there is no way to ever know if the 9/11 Commission received all required materials," Mr. Davis said. Mr. Davis ended with this tantalizing hint: "More is coming on this, and the committee will be issuing its own findings in this soon."

Scooter Libby, the former top aide to Vice President Cheney who is now facing felony counts for supposedly lying to federal investigators in the Valerie Plame non-case, must be bemused at how the worm turns in Washington. Sometimes the tale of who is vigorously prosecuted and who is dealt with leniently is the most perplexing Beltway ethics story of all.

Yesterday's report by the Inspector General for the National Archives makes it more obvious than ever that Sandy Berger, President Clinton's former National Security Adviser, got off easily in his document-filching case. Mr. Berger pleaded guilty last year to a misdemeanor charge of improperly removing classified material from the Archives. As part of a plea agreement, federal prosecutors asked him to pay a fine of only $10,000; an outraged judge bumped that up to a $50,000 fine.

It's now clear Mr. Berger is lucky to have stayed out of jail. The Inspector General's report found that the paper he stole outlined the government's knowledge of terrorist threats in the U.S. in the final months of the Clinton administration -- documents of some interest to the 9/11 Commission that Mr. Berger was preparing to testify before. He admitted to investigators that he later retrieved the documents from their hiding place and brought them to his office, where he tore some up and placed them in the trash.

Mr. Berger originally maintained his actions were "an honest mistake" rather than an attempt to cover up aspects of the Clinton administration's counterterrorism efforts. But Rep. Tom Davis, the outgoing chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, told C-SPAN this morning that Mr. Berger may have taken working documents for which no copies exist. "There is absolutely no way to determine if Berger swiped any of these original documents. Consequently, there is no way to ever know if the 9/11 Commission received all required materials," Mr. Davis said. Mr. Davis ended with this tantalizing hint: "More is coming on this, and the committee will be issuing its own findings in this soon."

Scooter Libby, the former top aide to Vice President Cheney who is now facing felony counts for supposedly lying to federal investigators in the Valerie Plame non-case, must be bemused at how the worm turns in Washington. Sometimes the tale of who is vigorously prosecuted and who is dealt with leniently is the most perplexing Beltway ethics story of all.

Prosecutorial discretion vs. prosecutorial overreach. It's been said before, but imagine the uproar if Condi Rice has been caught stealing and destroying documents. President Clinton was said to have laughed when he heard about this. And some think he did not take security seriously...

Posted by jk at December 21, 2006 3:30 PM