Taking Heat for North Korea Errors, GOP Says: Probe Clinton Official!

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Why are Republicans now calling for the investigation of a three year-old incident involving a Clinton-era official that’s already been settled? As a senior Democrat points out, their call came just one day after that official, Sandy Berger, criticized the Bush administration’s North Korea policy on Fox News.

In 2003, Sandy Berger, the former National Security Advisor to President Clinton, took classified documents from the National Archives*. That’s illegal. The Justice Department investigated the matter, and prosecuted Berger on a misdemeanor charge. In April 2005, Berger pleaded guilty to one charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material.

Yesterday — eighteen months after that case ended — 10 House Republicans suddenly called for a House investigation of the same incident.

In an attempt to explain the timing, the spokesman for Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), one of the Republicans calling for the (re-)investigation, said that the House had held off until the Justice Department’s probe concluded. Neither Hunter or the other GOPers have criticized the Justice Department’s investigation, nor a parallel probe conducted by the National Archives’ inspector general.

Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), the chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, joined the movement yesterday, sending a letter to the inspector general of the National Archives asking for a copy of his report on the matter. His spokesman described the move as a preliminary step to investigation.

Davis’ ranking member on the panel, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), protested the move. “The Berger incident is not new,” Waxman wrote to Davis, “and there is no conceivable standard under which it would be considered a vitally important national security matter.” He added with a note of skepticism that Berger had “appeared on Fox television and criticized the Bush Administration for its negligent approach to North Korea” just the day before the calls for investigation came.

The full letter below the jump….

Update: Berger took documents from the National Archives, not the National Security Archives, as this post originally stated.

October 11, 2006

The Honorable Tom Davis
Chairman
Committee on Government Reform
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Mr. Chairman:

I am writing to ask about the timing of your letter today requesting materials from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) relating to Samuel R. Berger, former National Security Advisor to President Clinton.

The Berger incident is not new, and there is no conceivable standard under which it would be considered a vitally important national security matter. As you know, the Justice Department thoroughly investigated the incident in 2004, and Mr. Berger pled guilty in April 2005 to a misdemeanor charge of taking classified documents without authorization. At the time of Mr. Berger’s plea, Noel Hillman, the chief of the Justice Department’s public integrity section, said that Mr. Berger “did not have an intent to hide any of the content of the documents.”[1] Over a year ago, our staffs had a long meeting with Mr. Berger’s attorney, during which the attorney provided extensive information about Mr. Berger’s actions. Between then and today, the Committee took no further action on this issue of which I am aware.

Yesterday, Mr. Berger appeared on Fox television and criticized the Bush Administration for its negligent approach to North Korea.[2] It would be regrettable if the letter from Republican members that you received today and your own letter to NARA were prompted by Mr. Berger’s criticism of the Administration. In our country, individuals should be free to criticize the government without fearing congressional investigation.

It would be equally regrettable if the sudden calls for an investigation were part of an organized effort to divert attention from the war in Iraq and other pressing national issues.

In recent weeks, there have been a series of reports that raise major questions about how the Administration has handled national security issues. These questions include: (1) why President Bush repeatedly claimed that the war in Iraq has made the United States safer when all 16 intelligence agencies had reached the opposite conclusion in an April 2006 National Intelligence Estimate; (2) why, as detailed in Bob Woodward’s recent book State of Denial, President Bush and Administration officials provided Congress and the American people with false assessments of the violence in Iraq; and (3) whether Condoleezza Rice, then National Security Advisor, failed to take appropriate action after reportedly being informed in a July 2001 meeting with then CIA Director George Tenet about an imminent attack by Al Qaeda.

I respectfully suggest that any of these subjects would be more deserving of the Committee’s attention than the Berger matter and request an explanation of why the Committee is pursuing the Berger matter at this time.

Sincerely,

Henry A. Waxman
Ranking Minority Member

[1] Berger Is Likely to Face Fine, Washington Post (Apr. 2, 2005).
[2] Former Clinton Adviser Sandy Berger on North Korea Nuke Crisis, The Big Story with John Gibson, Fox News (Oct. 10, 2006).

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