Former Clinton adviser cops plea

Remember back in 2003 when Bubba's former security advisor Sandy Berger "inadvertently" took some classified materials he'd been reviewing at the National Archive? As it turns out, he's a liar and a thief:

Sandy Berger, a national security adviser to President Clinton, has agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge and give up his security clearance for three years for removing classified material from a government archive, the Justice Department and associates of Berger's said yesterday.

A well-respected figure in foreign policy circles for many years, Berger has also agreed to pay a $10,000 fine as part of an agreement reached recently with the Justice Department after months of quiet negotiations, the associates said.

When the issue surfaced last year, Berger insisted that he had removed the classified material inadvertently.

But in the plea agreement reached with prosecutors, he is expected to admit that he intentionally removed copies of five classified documents, destroyed three of them, and misled staff members at the National Archives when confronted about it, according to an associate of Berger's who is involved in his defense but who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plea has not been formalized in court.

Berger stole documents, destroyed some of them and lied about it. He should be locked up.

Update: I'm not alone in thinking Berger got off way to easy. Here's an excerpt from a Power Line post by Hindrocket:

Key documents relating to our government's inadequate reaction to the threat of Islamic terrorism prior to Sept. 11 are now gone forever, successfully purged from the historical record by one of Bill Clinton's most loyal servants. This plea bargain appears, on its face, to be a disgrace.

Yes, it certainly does.