According to Newsweek's Michael Isikoff, in an interview on Fox News' "Special Report," the President Clinton's bumbling National Security Adviser Sandy Berger did not destroy any unique documents as a result of his pilferage. Berger only had access to copies -- though Isikoff noted that it was unclear that Berger was aware they were only copies.
HUME: Now, to the best of our knowledge, these are not the original memos or drafts. They are copies of it.
ISIKOFF: They are copies.
HUME: Which presumably Berger knew, right? Knew they were copies?
ISIKOFF: We don't know that for sure. But we do -- the important thing is that there was a lot of suspicions at the time that Berger may have destroyed government -- original government records so that the...
HUME: Archives are without them.
ISIKOFF: Archives are without them and the commission would be without them. And he may have been destroying incriminating evidence for the Clinton administration. One thing that was clear from the plea on Friday is the prosecutor said that's not the case, that there were originals of all five copies.
But just to get back to the story...
HUME: Nothing has been lost as a result of what Berger did.
ISIKOFF: According to Noel Hellmann, the chief of the Public Integrity section at the Justice Department, he said nothing has been lost to the U.S. government archives.
Isikoff offered as a possible explanation for Berger's destruction of three documents and the return of two others, the belief that his "honest mistake" would look more honest if he only had two documents and not five -- the literal volume of all of the documents would work against his defense.
Having set the record straight, Berger should still get 30 days in jail and 500 hours of community service picking up garbage on the side of the highway.
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