March 29, 2015

Could there really be corruption and lawbreaking among top Democrat leaders? Well...

Well, well, well:  Turns out that after the House committee on Benghazi asked Hillary to turn over her emails on her private server--the only email account she used, and used for official government business while she was Secretary of State, and the only way Americans could know which ones were her official government records--which, by law, are the property of the government--the scofflaw bitch had her munchkins erase the data!

Of course you probably didn't hear that, since the mainstream (i.e. Democrat-run) media gave it very little mention.  Oh well, it's just a silly law, and only Little People have to worry about trivia like that.

And of course, "At this point, what difference could it possibly make?"

Of course if you're a hard-working, law-abiding, family-raising American you probably find it hard to believe that such a high-ranking, exalted, powerful person as Hillary--often touted by the Dem media as the presumptive Dem nominee for president in 2016--would actually do something so blatantly against the law.  After all, she was a senator and SecState--a good liberal/"progressive" Democrat, f'r heaven's sake--and is married to a former president.  Most of us naturally, reasonably assume that such people are supposed to obey the laws.

It's literally hard for most people to imagine that with all their money and power, people like Hillary and Bill and Nan Pelosi and Harry Reid would they break the laws they're supposedly charged with honoring and enforcing.  Most good people simply can't believe it--they think it's just a fiction by political opponents, part of that same vast, right-wing conspiracy Hillary whined about years ago when Bill's affairs were just beginning to come to light. 

That would be right around the time he committed perjury in the Paula Jones case.

In any case, if you have trouble believing such powerful Democrat leaders break laws with impunity, an incident from 2003 that most of you probably didn't pay attention to will show you how Bill and Hill operate.

It's the case of Democrat Sandy Berger, a long-time Clinton friend who was Clinton's National Security Advisor from 1997 to 2001. 

Eight months after the end of Clinton's term, 19 muslim hijackers destroyed the World Trade Center and killed another couple of hundred at the Pentagon.  Worse damage was only avoided because alert and brave men on Flight 93 determined to retake control of that plane rather than let the rag-heads fly them into a fourth target.

Two years later, with the public still wanting to know if anyone missed obvious clues about the planned hijacking, Berger went to the National Archives in July, September and October of 2003, and reviewed classified documents that were coming to the attention of the 9-11 Commission.

On September 2, 2003, and again on October 2nd, Berger stuffed a total of five classified documents from the Archives in his pants and socks and walked out with them.  An employee who saw Berger stuffing the docs into his pants reported this to his supervisors, but no one on the staff was willing to confront the politically-connected Berger.

It's worth noting here that as National Security Advisor to the president, Berger had a security clearance and was quite familiar with the laws and rules regarding classified documents.  He clearly knew stealing them was against the law--which is why he hid the docs in his pants and socks.  Duh.

Soon after the October visit, employees at the Archives confirmed that documents were missing and  contacted Berger.  Initially Berger denied taking the documents but later told Archives staff he had “accidentally misfiled” two of them. [1]

This, of course, was a brazen lie.  But remember that the guy worked for the perjurer-in-chief, William Jefferson Clinton, so the brazen lie is less surprising.

Four years later here's how the Democrat-loving WaPo summarized the Berger case:
Berger Case Still Roils Archives, Justice Dept.
   By R. Jeffrey Smith
   Washington Post, Wednesday, February 21, 2007

[In 2004 the inspector general of the National Archives and Records Administration, Paul Brachfeld, met with a group of investigators and FBI agents to discuss] Brachfeld's contention that President Clinton's former national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger could have stolen original, uncatalogued, highly classified terrorism documents 14 months earlier by wrapping them around his socks and beneath his pants, as National Archives staff member John Laster reported witnessing.

Brachfeld said he was worried that during four visits in 2002 and 2003, Berger had the opportunity to remove more than the five documents he admitted taking.
So the IG is "worried" that Berger might have removed more than the five docs he admitted taking.  Keep this in mind and we'll see if anyone actually follows up on this possibility. 
Brachfeld wanted the Justice Department to notify officials of the 9/11 Commission that Berger's actions -- in combination with a bungled Archives response -- might have obstructed the commission's review of Clinton's terrorism policies.

The Justice Department spurned the advice, and some of Brachfeld's colleagues at the Archives greeted his warnings with accusations of disloyalty. But more than three years later, as Brachfeld and House lawmakers have pushed new details about Berger's actions onto the public record -- such as Berger's use of a construction site near the Archives to temporarily hide some of the classified documents -- Brachfeld's contentions have attracted fresh support.

A report last month by the Republican staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said for the first time that Berger's visits were so badly mishandled that Archives officials had acknowledged not knowing if he removed anything else and destroyed it. The committee further argued that the 9/11 Commission should have been told more about Berger and about Brachfeld's concerns, a suggestion that resonated with Philip Zelikow, the commission's former executive director.

Zelikow said in an interview last week that "I think all of my colleagues would have wanted to have all the information at the time that we learned from the congressional report, because that would have triggered some additional questions, including questions we could have posed to Berger under oath."

The commission's former general counsel, Dan Marcus, expressed surprise at how little the Justice Department told the commission about Berger and said it was "a little unnerving" to learn from the congressional report exactly what Berger reviewed at the Archives and what he admitted to the FBI -- including that he removed and cut up three copies of a classified memo.

"If he took papers out, these were unique records, and highly, highly classified. Had a document not been produced, who would have known?" Brachfeld said in an interview. "I thought [the 9/11 Commission] should know, in current time -- in judging Sandy Berger as a witness . . . that there was a risk they did not get the full production of records."

In an April 1, 2005, press conference and private statements to the commission, the Justice Department stated instead that Berger had access only to copied documents, not originals. They also said the sole documents Berger admitted taking -- five copies of a 2001 terrorism study -- were later provided to the commission.

Those assertions conflicted with a September 2004 statement to Brachfeld by Nancy Kegan Smith, who directs the Archives' presidential documents staff and let Berger view the documents in her office in violation of secrecy rules.
Why would Smith have broken secrecy rules to let Berger view the classified documents?  Can you say "inside job"? 

But of course everyone knows that rules are only to apply to Little People, right?  Never to Bill, Hill or their staff.
Smith said "she would never know what if any original documents were missing," Brachfeld reported in an internal memo.
This implies that no one at the archives had an inventory of the docs they possessed.  Does anyone think that's remotely plausible?  Archives have inventory lists.  But claiming she couldn't know if any original documents were missing, the director closes off any inquiry into what other docs Berger might have stolen.  Good move if you're trying to sweep the theft under the rug.

In a letter to House lawmakers, Acting Assistant Attorney General Richard Hertling did not address the issue of why the department told the commission so little. But Hertling wrote that in numerous interviews, "neither Mr. Berger nor any other witness provided the Department with evidence that Mr. Berger had taken any documents beyond the five."
Again this suggests an inside job, working to close off any inquiry into other documents.

Hertling said the department "stands by its investigation" and believes the guilty plea it negotiated with Berger on April 1, 2005, "was the best one possible in light of the available evidence." He also criticized the Archives staff for failing at the time to confront Berger, search him or contact security officials, saying this failure "had to be weighed against the evidence."

[The IG] has also expressed frustration that Smith and others who suspected Berger of wrongdoing chose not to inform him of their suspicions until more than a week after Berger's last visit to the Archives. "If I had been notified, I would have put cameras in the room. I would have caught him leaving with documents on him. . . . We could have had FBI agents around the facility. . . . He would have been arrested," Brachfeld said.
If the perp had been a Republican do ya think the WaPo writer would have used the gentle euphemism "wrongdoing" instead of "stealing secret documents"?

Brachfeld pressed Justice Department officials on six occasions in 2004 to make a fuller statement to the commission about Berger's actions, to no avail. He also contacted Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine, who organized an April 2004 meeting between Brachfeld and Justice officials that convinced him that "these issues had to go before the 9/11 Commission," according to two people present.

But in a notification to the commission the following month, the ["Justice"] department did not mention that Berger had cut up documents, that he reviewed uncatalogued originals or that Brachfeld worried that Berger's theft was greater.
Again, trying to minimize the crime.  Why?

In the Hertling letter, the department noted obstacles in its investigation. The FBI was not advised of the case until Oct. 15, 2003, almost two weeks after Smith concluded that Berger had stolen documents. By then, Archives General Counsel Gary Stern had called Berger and former Clinton lawyer Bruce Lindsey about it and obtained two documents from Berger, who surrendered them at home after first denying they were in his possession.
But you can totally trust him to tell the truth about everything else.  Because he's a liberal Democrat and a good friend of the former president.  Who was famous for telling the truth.

The letter also said that six months after beginning the probe and well after Berger testified to the commission, "the Department had not yet asked Mr. Berger any questions, as he had not yet agreed to an interview."
One first thinks this must be a joke:  How in hell can anyone who isn't corrupt NOT EVEN INTERVIEW this slimy snake lyin' rat bastard Berger for over six months?  Give Berger and his legal team lots of time to work out possible cover stories.
Berger's lawyer, Lanny Breuer, said Berger first spoke to the FBI in March 2005 and was interviewed a second time in July of that year, after his April 1, 2005, guilty plea to unauthorized removal and retention of classified material.
Again, this seems so astonishingly unusual that it's really hard to believe.  The former National Security Advisor steals classified documents, lies about it, and yet his own attorney says the first time the FBI even spoke to Berger about the crime was eighteen months after the theft?  WTF?

Breuer... criticized the renewed attention to Berger's case.  "It never ceases to amaze me how the most trivial things can be politicized. It is the height of unfairness . . . for this poor guy, who clearly made a mistake," Breuer said.
Ah.  "A mistake."

The guy stuffs secret documents in his pants and socks and walks out with 'em by mistake?  No way, asshole.  This was in no way a mistake.  In fact, the brazenness and presumably high risk suggests two things:  Desperation to remove something from the record, and that Berger knew that if he got caught, the fix would be in to get him off the hook.

Again, it's not like Berger was unfamiliar with classified docs and the rules surrounding 'em.  I mean, he was the damn national security advisor, f'r heaven's sake. 

If you or I or Joe the plumber had done this we'd be in prison.  By contrast--huge contrast--Berger was sentenced to just two years probation, fined $50,000 and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service.

The Justice Department seems to have covered for Berger at every turn, despite a clear record that Berger initially lied about stealing the documents.

As far as I know, no one has ever asked Berger why he stole these particular documents--let alone asked him under oath, in a setting where he would face cross-examination. 

This is a huge omission--one so glaring that it seems to point to a coverup.  The reason is that nothing in the printed version of the documents he admitted taking reflects badly on Berger--which makes it hugely unlikely that he stole the documents on his own initiative

If the docs didn't have damaging info about Berger, why would he steal them?

This apparent lack of motive has led some to speculate that the purpose of the theft was to destroy documents that had hand-written comments on them--possibly information about Clinton administration acts or omissions that the former president didn't want the 9-11 Commission or the public to see.  And of course it's also possible that since the Archives director claimed not to know what docs they had, Berger could have stolen other, original documents which might have contained...well, anything.  But since the corrupt FBI and Justice departments never interviewed him for 18 months, we'll never know.

But definitely a coverup.

Now ponder this:  If the Democrats had enough of their people in the Justice Department--during a Republican administration--to block the Berger investigation so he got off with probation, one can easily imagine they have far more power today, under the emperor's thoroughly corrupt regime.  In which case Hillary wouldn't have worried for a moment when ordering her lackeys to erase her emails, despite this being a clear and obvious violation of the law.

She knew she could trust her people in Justice to slow-walk or otherwise bungle any investigation.  She knew she had nothing to worry about.

Because laws are for Little People, not for elites like Hillary and Bill.  And of course the emperor.

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