Listening to the G. Gordon Liddy Show, I just heard Pajamas Media’s Richard Miniter make a major news announcement revealing what he thinks Sandy Berger was doing (in the sock stuffing caper) and for which Miniter thinks “he ought to go to jail for a long time.” (10 to 20 years!) Among other national security documents, says Miniter, Berger removed and destroyed a 1995 letter from the President of Somalia to President Clinton, in which the former apparently offered to hand over Osama bin Laden.
That’s all I have right now, but keep an eye on Pajamas Media, as Miniter’s documentary evidence is supposed to be posted the next half hour.
Excellent work! My hat’s off to Richard Miniter and Pajamas Media for fantastic original reporting.
(This comes right on the heels of Richard Miniter’s groundbreaking reports on the flying imams. )
I’m beginning to understand why blogs make the old media puke….
UPDATE (12:00 p.m.): The report has been posted at Pajamas Media, and here’s the link:
PJM is making public on this website for the first time the report by the Inspector General’s office regarding Sandy Berger and his theft and destruction of classified national security documents — named in the report as, “The ‘W’ Intelligence Files.” This document was obtained for review by Pajamas Media’s.
Berger, as the former National Security Adviser for the Clinton Administration, was granted sole access to these documents in order to vet them prior to their being turned over to the 9/11 Commission and congress. As this file shows, he used this position of trust to take a number of documents and destroy several.
Read it!
Comments
5 responses to “Just in time! A Christmas stocking stuffer”
Perhaps Sandy Berger didn’t feel that this letter offering to turn over bin Laden was important enough to bring to Bill Clinton’s attention.
You may recall that Sandy Berger was severely criticized back in ’87 for his failure to tell Pres. Clinton that Chinese spies had illegally obtained the plans for a number of U.S. nuclear warheads and sent the info back to Beijing. Berger later said that he didn’t feel that this was important enough bring to Pres. Clinton’s attention immediately.
Correction: I said ’87 above. That’s the wrong year. It was 1999.
Sorry to be OT, but I’m wondering if you brought that puppy home . . .
I always assumed that Berger destroyed information that made him look bad. If he destroyed information relating to an offer to hand over OBL that he had never handed to Clinton, that would certainly qualify.
There are a number of comments, mostly intelligent, on this topic at the Volokh Conspiracy. A couple of people toss out an eyebrow-raiser: Berger’s handling of the stolen material looks very much like a dead drop. This raises the possibility of Sandy being an unregistered agent of a foreign principal or — uh-oh — committing wartime espionage. Time to follow the money.