Sandy Berger lied, Martha went to Prison

Bill Clinton's National Security Advisor Sandy Berger stole classified documents about the Clinton Administration's response to terrorism from the National Archives, cut them up, and lied about it. Result: No prison time, trivial fine, security clearance lifted for three whole years. At least that is his plea deal. I hope the judge is considerably less forgiving.

John F. Harris and Allan Lengel have the story in the Washington Post.

The terms of Berger's agreement required him to acknowledge to the Justice Department the circumstances of the episode. Rather than misplacing or unintentionally throwing away three of the five copies he took from the archives, as the former national security adviser earlier maintained, he shredded them with a pair of scissors late one evening at the downtown offices of his international consulting business...

On Sept. 2, 2003...Berger put a copy of the Clarke report in his suit jacket...On Oct. 2, 2003, he again spent hours at the archives and took four more versions of the document. Back in his office, he studied them in detail, realized they were largely identical, and took the scissors to three of the copies, the associate said.

The associate, by the way, was authorized to speak with reporters.

Most commentary I have read speculates that he destroyed some copies but not all because he was concerned about marginal notations by the officials who had originally received them.

Thanks to http://instapundit.com/