There is an old saying: “Fool me once, shame on you; Fool me twice, shame on me.”

In an attempt to prevent all of us from getting fooled twice, I am going to tell you the story of Sandy Berger.

Samuel Richard (Sandy) Berger was Deputy National Security Advisor and then National Security Advisor to President Bill Clinton.  I’m not going to come right out and say he did a poor job, but during his tenure, we were attacked by Al-Qaeda and other extremists at least 5 times, we were offered Osama Bin Laden by the Sudanese and turned them down, we allowed the Chinese to steal our Nuclear Secrets, and 9 months after Berger left his post, we suffered the mother of all national security breaches on 9-11.  Okay, maybe I will come right out and say it: Sandy Berger did a poor job.  Now, in his defense, it has been charged that his boss, Bill Clinton, didn't take our National Security seriously.  Suffice it to say, that nothing represents his National Security negligence more than the appointment of Sandy Berger as his National Security Advisor.   By the same token, no one person knows more about the details of this negligence than Sandy Berger, himself.

So when it came time for the 9-11 Commission to investigate the events that lead up to the attack, no one found it unusual that Bill Clinton chose Berger as his designated representative to the Commission.    In order to prepare for the investigation, Sandy Berger visited the National Archives to review highly confidential and classified documents five times over the course of four months in 2003.   Archive employees noticed from the outset that Sandy’s behavior was unusual.  Despite rules that require an Archive employee to be present during document review, Berger repeatedly requested time alone to make personal phone calls and took bathroom breaks every half hour.  After his third visit, Archive employees became suspicious that he was illegally removing documents.  Rather than directly confront someone with Berger's credentials, employees decided to more closely monitor his activity during subsequent visits.   On his fourth and fifth visits, Archive employees witnessed Sandy Berger stuffing documents in his pants and socks.  They then witnessed him leave with highly confidential National Security documents that he proceeded to hide under a nearby construction trailer.  His plan was to retrieve them later. 

When Berger was confronted, he first lied and shifted blame to the Archive employees.  Then he claimed that the documents were removed accidentally and innocently.  This made perfect sense.  I mean tell me someone who hasn’t at one time or another stuffed classified National Security documents down their pants, accidentally.   Mercifully, the Justice Department accepted his explanation and allowed him to enter a plea to the misdemeanor charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material.

However, the subsequent House and Archives investigation determined that his actions were anything but accidental.   They determined that Sandy Berger willfully and illegally stole classified documents and destroyed them.  On April 1, 2005, he was fined $50,000, sentenced to 2 years probation and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service.

This sordid episode begs the question, why would Sandy Berger take such a risk.  I mean he had to know that if caught he would face disgrace, disbarment and perhaps prison.   There must have been some pretty damning details in those documents.  So damning, that Berger would risk his career, reputation and freedom so that the 9-11 Commission and the rest of America would never see them.  The House Government Reform Committee said that during his time in the Archives, Berger had “access to original, uncopied, uninventoried documents on terrorism and that they would never know what, if any, were missing.”  His audacity in committing this crime only points to either his complete lack of respect for the 9-11 Commission, the American people and the truth, or to something much more sinister, his desperation to destroy those documents at all cost. 

Now, I am not telling you the story of Sandy Berger because I want you to figure out that he didn’t come up with this brilliant plan by himself, or that he was most likely, how should I put this, “encouraged” to steal those documents.  I am telling you this because Sandy Berger was hired in November as a paid advisor to presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.    It is believed that he is advising her on foreign policy.  Don’t worry though, his security clearance is suspended until September 2008.   Shame on us if we give these people a chance to fool us again.