Journalistic limitations or sloppy reporting? - Reader comments at The New York Sun

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How an Ex-Aide to President Clinton Stashed Classified Documents

Submitted by Archy, Dec 21, 2006 18:51

Jared, you write, "You would think there would be some investigative journalists out there just itching to get the full scoop on this story. What if there was something covered up? What would be important enough for a former National Security Advisor to sneak out top secret documents and destroy them at the risk of his career, his freedom, or even his life if it were deemed espionage. More likely it was just sloppiness."

There are methodological problems in looking to journalists. They are limited in what they can know. As a government official, the National Archives' Inspector General is better positioned to look into this matter than any journalist. He has done so.

However, journalists covered some aspects of this story when it first broke (remember the articles in the Washington Post, Washington Times, New York Times, Slate, etc., with all the witty headlines and cluck clucking about Berger's actions? Slate's opinion piece, ""Wrist-Slap for Five Finger Discount," is one that comes to mind.)

Berger plea bargained with the current administration's (President Bush's) Justice Department and a judge accepted the plea bargain. DOJ maintained in January 2006 that Berger " 'did not have an intent to hide any of the content of the documents' or conceal facts from the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks." If you do not believe that to be the case, what motive would you attribute to a high ranking official of the Bush administration making such a statement?

From what I've read in the press, plea bargains often result when prosecutors believe that they have more to gain from allowing someone to plead than from prosecuting a case. (My guess -- and I am not a lawyer, I'm just guessing here -- is that going to trial might have led to questioning about how high ranking officials of both political parties have been afforded special treatment in the past, if, as some news stories suggest, that has been the case. (Remember how Slate reported that some unidentified archives officials had said that "the archive's guards almost never inspect ex-officials' briefcases when they leave the vaults or the building.") And I earlier referred to the problems that arose with the Reagan Presidential Library when a file disappeared after White House lawyers looked at it last year. I would not be surprised if there have been other, less serious, problems with VIP researchers, simply because they often demand special privileges from government employees of lesser rank. Fortunately, from news reports today it appears that the Archives' IG did the right thing when he pointed to the problems with special treatment afforded Berger.

If you are looking for motive, unless Berger decides to talk (and unfortunately he is under no legal compulsion to do so), we may never know. Journalists would not and SHOULD NOT have access to the national security classified document(s) in question. Consequently, they could not find out and reveal to the public what was in the documents involved.

Rather than turning to journalists for redress, I think it is more useful to consider governmental processes. William Leonard, director of the Information Security Oversight Office at the National Archives, has given a number of good speeches and has testified effectively on classification issues in the last year or two. He mentioned Abu Ghraib in one speech about the dangers of improper classification, as I recall, but his remarks were nonpartisan in nature. (Leonard is a former DOD official who seems to have a good reputation in Washington.)

I do not believe any National Archives' employees ever would leak classified documents to the press even if any member of the public, including those posting on this board, wanted a journalist to try to dig more deeply into this story. That simply is not the culture in that agency, government archivist appear to take their responsibilities under law very seriously. I for one am glad of that. I find the idea of government employees leaking classified documents to journalists to be troubling.. I'm glad it never has happened with National Archives' employees. Since I assume we all agree that classified markings must be respected, I'm stumped as to what more anyone is looking for in terms of journalistic action. What methodologies are any of you advocating? Reporters simply do not have the right to see the documents with which Berger was dealing. And most good newspapers prefer to focus on sustainable narratives based on known facts, not on speculation.

If you are advocating declassification of the documents, that is a governmental funtion, not a journalistic one. However, it often takes 25 years before such records are declassified.

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How an Ex-Aide to President Clinton Stashed Classified Documents