WASHINGTON – Former national security adviser Sandy Berger quit Tuesday as an informal adviser to Democrat John Kerry’s presidential campaign after disclosure of a criminal investigation into whether he mishandled classified terrorism documents.
Berger’s decision came as both parties sought to use the investigation to gain political advantage or to control damage.
Republicans said the probe raises questions about whether the former Clinton administration official was trying to hide embarrassing materials from the public. Democrats questioned why disclosure of a months-old investigation came just before Thursday’s release of the final report by the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks.
The report is expected to be highly critical of the government’s handling of the pre-Sept. 11 terror threat.
Former President Clinton told reporters at a Denver autograph session for his book “My Life” that “it’s interesting timing.”
Berger served as national security adviser during Clinton’s second term. “I know him. He’s a good man. He worked his heart out for this country,” Clinton said.
Speaking to reporters outside his office Tuesday, Berger said: “Last year, when I was in the archives reviewing documents, I made an honest mistake. It’s one that I deeply regret.”
The Justice Department is investigating whether Berger committed a crime last fall by removing from the National Archives documents about the government’s anti-terror efforts and notes that he took on those documents. Federal laws prohibit unauthorized release or removal of classified documents.
Berger was reviewing the materials to help determine which Clinton administration documents to provide to the Sept. 11 commission.
“So is this about Sandy Berger, or is this about politics?” asked Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md.
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, told reporters the case was about theft, and he questioned Berger’s statement attributing the removal of the documents and notes to sloppiness.
Berger and his attorney, Lanny Breuer, said the former Clinton adviser knowingly removed handwritten notes by placing them in his jacket and pants, and inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio.
He returned most of the documents, but some still are missing.
“That’s not sloppy,” DeLay said. “I think its gravely, gravely serious what he did, if he did it. It could be a national security crisis.”
House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said he was “profoundly troubled” by the allegations, adding that Berger “has a lot of explaining to do.”
The documents involved have been a key point of contention between the Clinton and Bush administrations on the question of who responded more forcefully to the threat of al-Qaida terrorism.
Written by former National Security Council aide Richard Clarke, the papers discuss the 1999 plot to attack U.S. millennium celebrations and offer more than two dozen recommendations for improving the response to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network.
The missing copies, according to Berger’s attorney and Clarke, were versions of after-action reports recommending changes following threats of terrorism as 1999 turned to 2000. Clarke said he prepared about two dozen ideas for countering terrorist threats. The recommendations were circulated among Cabinet agencies, and various versions of the memo contained additions and refinements, Clarke said.
Clarke said it is illogical to assume Berger would have sought to hide versions of the memo, because “everybody in town had copies of these things.”
Berger said in his March 23 testimony that Clinton submitted a $300 million supplemental budget to Congress to pay for implementing many of the documents’ recommendations.
In his April 13 testimony to the Sept. 11 commission, Attorney General John Ashcroft said the review “warns the prior administration of a substantial al-Qaida network” in the United States. Ashcroft added that he never saw the documents before the Sept. 11 attacks.
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice testified to the Sept. 11 panel that she did not recall being briefed on the report during the transition period to the Bush administration, and she said she did not read it until after the Sept. 11 attacks, when Vice President Dick Cheney distributed it.
Berger earlier said that every Clinton administration document requested by the Sept. 11 commission was provided to the panel. Berger also said he returned some classified documents and all his handwritten notes when he was asked about them, except for two or three copies of the millennium report that might have been thrown away.
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