WASHINGTON (AP) — Former national security adviser Sandy Berger
removed classified documents from the National Archives in 2003 and
hid them under a construction trailer, the Archives inspector
general reported Wednesday.
The report was issued more than a year after Berger pleaded
guilty and received a criminal sentence for removal of the
documents.
Inspector General Paul Brachfeld reported that when Berger was
confronted by Archives officials about the missing documents, he
said it was possible he threw them in his office trash.
The report said that when Archives employees first suspected
that Berger — who had been President Clinton’s national security
adviser — was removing classified documents from the Archives in
the fall of 2003, they failed to notify any law enforcement agency.
Berger, who pleaded guilty to unlawfully removing and retaining
classified documents, was fined $50,000, ordered to perform 100
hours of community service and was barred from access to classified
material for three years.
The report said that when Berger was reviewing the classified
documents in the Archives building a few blocks from the Capitol,
employees saw him bending down and fiddling with something white,
which could have been paper, around his ankle.
However, Archives employees did not feel at the time there was
enough information to confront someone of Berger’s stature, the
report said.
Brac
hfeld reported that on one visit, Berger took a break to go
outside without an escort.
“In total, during this visit, he removed four documents … .
“Mr. Berger said he placed the documents under a trailer in an
accessible construction area outside Archives .1 (the main Archives
building).”
Berger acknowledged that he later retrieved the documents from
the construction area and returned with them to his office.