SANDY BERGER UNDER INVESTIGATION: This is bizarre:
WASHINGTON – President Clinton’s national security adviser, Sandy Berger, is the focus of a criminal investigation after removing highly classified terrorism documents and handwritten notes from a secure reading room during preparations for the Sept. 11 commission hearings, The Associated Press has learned. . . .
Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed handwritten notes he had made while reading classified anti-terror documents he reviewed at the archives by sticking them in his jacket and pants. He also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio, they said. . . .
The officials said the missing documents were highly classified, and included critical assessments about the Clinton administration’s handling of the millennium terror threats as well as identification of America’s terror vulnerabilities at airports to sea ports.
(Via Ed Morrissey, who wonders what Berger was thinking.) Has anybody seen Fawn Hall lately?
UPDATE: I didn’t know this, but it turns out that Berger is “now a chief foreign policy adviser to Senator John Kerry.” You’d think that a man in his position would be more careful. (Via TLM — and via the TLM comments you can see this item from Kerry’s website in which Berger serves as a spokesman).
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Brian Leone wants to call this “trousergate.”
Tom Maguire looks forward to evaluating some commentators on the basis of consistency. And did Dana Milbank speak too soon?
MORE: Hugh Hewitt:
Ask yourself what would be going on in Washington, D.C. tonght, and on the network news, within the blogosphere, and in the morning papers, if it had been revealed that Condi Rice was the target of a criminal investigation for removing classified handwritten notes from the government records relating to terrorism.
I think we know. But it’s early yet — this may get more attention from Big Media tomorrow. Or, I suppose, it could turn out to be nothing — though for that to be true, the news accounts would have to be awfully wrong.
More links here. And Josh Marshall is troubled. “The whole thing seems almost inexplicable.”
And Tom Maguire emails: “One of my commenters says he finds it refreshing that a Clinton Admin official got in trouble for what he put INTO his pants.” Lots of blog posts, here.
MORE: Here’s a report on the missing after-action documents and what they said — apparently, something embarrassing for the Clinton Administration. And read this, too.