Former National Security Advisor and current Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice was accused of the theft and descruction of classified materials related to 9/11......

As to why: Cui bono? Anyone who could have been acutely embarrassed -- not by the printed document texts, for there were duplicates of those, but by handwritten marginalia ... doodles perhaps, but more likely statements of agreement, mockery, disagreement, who knows? And from the time frame of the documents he stole, some of which he admits to having destroyed, we can fairly infer that those who benefited from his acts were those in the Clinton Administration who wanted or needed to hide something at least dimly remembered as having been left in that marginalia that, post 9/11, wouldn't look good. Either it was Berger own notes being trashed, or someone else's, which is even scarier, because then by definition it's someone who wanted it badly enough to enlist, [i]and[/i] had the clout to persuade, a top-level guy like Berger to commit obvious (and ham-handed) felonies to them.

"I stuffed them down my pants" ain't far from "The dog ate my homework," but the ludicrous nature of the crime isn't inconsistent with it being a very, very serious crime. Every righteous keeper of government secrets, military and civilian, is himself or herself betrayed by this travesty of a plea bargain and "sentence."

Sounds bizarre, right? At least, that's where he says he hid them:...

Oh, that’s just Sandy, ha, ha, ha – didn’t surprise any of us, when we heard about it. You should have seen his desk at the White House! Sloppy Sandy – ethical as the day is long, though.

WJC

“He headed toward a construction area. . . . Mr. Berger looked up and down the street, up into the windows of the Archives and the DOJ (Department of Justice), and did not see anyone,” the interview notes said.

He then slid the documents under a construction trailer, according to the inspector general. Berger acknowledged that he later retrieved the documents from the construction area and returned with them to his office.

“He was aware of the risk he was taking,” the inspector general’s notes said. Berger then returned to the Archives building without fearing the documents would slip out of his pockets or that staff would notice that his pockets were bulging.

The notes said Berger had not been aware that Archives staff had been tracking the documents he was provided because of earlier suspicions from previous visits that he was removing materials.

Ethical as the day is long