Plea BARGAN

A year in prison (not jail) and a $100,000 fine. That is what former Clinton national security adviser Sandy Berger could have gotten for each of his admitted crimes.

The details of the plea bargain (heavy, heavy, emphasis on BARGAN) were printed this morning:

"Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, a former White House national security adviser, plans to plead guilty to a misdemeanor, and will acknowledge intentionally removing and destroying copies of a classified document about the Clinton administration's record on terrorism.

Berger's plea agreement, which was described yesterday by his advisers and was confirmed by Justice Department officials, will have one of former president Bill Clinton's most influential advisers and one of the Democratic Party's leading foreign policy advisers in a federal court this afternoon.

The deal's terms make clear that Berger spoke falsely last summer in public claims that in 2003 he twice inadvertently walked off with copies of a classified document during visits to the National Archives, and then later lost them.

He described the episode last summer as "an honest mistake." Yesterday, a Berger associate who declined to be identified by name but was speaking with Berger's permission said: "He recognizes what he did was wrong. . . . It was not inadvertent." "

So are you following me here?

Right in the middle of the so called “independent” 9/11 commission’s investigation, right in the middle of Richard Clark’s book publication impugning President Bush’s efforts and Condoleezza Rice’s knowledge of Al Quada, Berger and his magic pants and socks were removing unique, original copies of documents from the Clinton administration records:

"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.

The document, written by former National Security Council terrorism expert Richard A. Clarke, was an "after-action review" prepared in early 2000 detailing the administration's actions to thwart terrorist attacks during the millennium celebration. It contained considerable discussion about the administration's awareness of the rising threat of attacks on U.S. soil. "

Who knows what Berger actually got away with destroying, but being the career security employee that he was, he definitely knew of the illegality of tampering with secure documents and the potential consequences of his actions, but this 59 year old man was willing to risk his reputation and career to do what he did to protect SOMEONE.

I wonder who that SOMEONE was?

Berger took five copies, of which he destroyed three.

Five times ten is 50 years. Five times $100,000 is $500,000.

Three times ten is 30 years, three times $100,000 is $300,000.

But Berger got 0 years and $10,000 on a misdemeaner, not a Felony, plus a three year suspension of his security clearance.

What I want to know is, how in the hell can we ever trust this man with a security clearance again?

This man was the Kerry campaign's national security consultant. He was in line to serve in the Kerry cabinet if the media had managed to get his sorry ass elected.

Like I said before, what a nice Plea BARGAN.