Dartblog

Wtih the release to the newsmedia of this document, a National Archives investigative report of the activities of former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, the public learns that Bill Clinton’s chief security man, called upon by the 9/11 Commission to supply any documents relevant to the Clinton Administration’s efforts at preventing Islamist terrorism, took that charge as a cue to instead abduct highly confidential documents from the National Archives and to hide them at a nearby construction site. Like the sky’s reliable old snowflakes, the plodding, pervasive, leitmotif of the Clinton Administration — sleaze — comes clawing back, reminding Americans of just what it means to have a boss in the White House rather than a leader.

It seems important to keep in mind that the investigator’s report makes plain that the particular document Berger is known to have stolen — the Millennium After-Action Report, detailing efforts, such as they were, to stop Islamist terror — is probably not the only one he sought to unofficially relocate. Indeed, “Berger had not been aware that Archives staff had been tracking the documents he was provided,” the report says, “because of earlier suspicions from previous visits that he was removing materials.”