More on the Berger incident from the Washington Post.

I need to make a few corrections to my prior comments. First, Sandy didn't put the documents in his coat, as I previously stated. He stuffed them in his pants.

That's right.

He. Stuffed. Them. In. His. Pants.

A natural mistake, I'm sure you'll agree, that any one of us could have made.

I am still, however, outraged at the laxness of the National Archives in this whole matter. I have yet to hear a single satisfactory explanation for why Mr. Berger was allowed to go through the documents without a handler sitting with him.

Again, as a lawyer, I have several cases with large numbers of documents. Typically, if the bad guys have more than three or four boxes of documents, my client and I will go to the opposing lawyer's office and go through the boxes produced, tagging those documents we want to copy. That way, we avoid unnecessary expense or duplication (as we may already have certain documents, etc.).

During these reviews, there is always somebody from the opposing side in the room -- whether that person is a lawyer or a paralegal varies from case to case, but SOMEBODY is there. Their job is to make sure we don't remove or destroy any documents (inadvertently or otherwise) and to make sure we don't scramble an existing filing system or otherwise re-arrange the documents (which are often ongoing business records of one sort or another).

I'm glad that person is there because it protects me, too. If the bad guys later claim some documents are missing, they cannot claim that I had anything to do with it.

These protocols are for simple civil lawsuits in state and federal courts. Why, then, should the protocols for allowing a civilian no longer employed by the Executive branch be any less restrictive? Sure, Sandy is a former administration member and is (was) advising the Kerry campaign, so he should (a) already have a security clearance (though that is probably gone now (or it should be)); and (b) have a good reason to want to see those documents.

But to allow him to review them without a handler simply invites things events such as this. It's stupidity bordering on recklessness.

Sandy is, of course, responsible for his actions; the National Archives should be held responsible for their omission.
- posted by MrSpkr @ 10:13