Sandy Berger removed secret documents from the archives last October. It’s been under investigation for months. Why is the Justice Department leaking this now?

Berger has to answer for what he did, but the timing is incredibly suspicious, and in a way this political hatchet job will detract from the original allegation.

Well timed leaks are already a trademark of John Ashcroft’s rule in the Justice Department. If there’s a leak rest assured there’s a much bigger story going on behind the scenes that they are trying to distract you from.

Say, when is that 9/11 report due anyway?

The good news, if you can call it that, is that the documents he took were duplicates and notes. (That’s according to the talking heads on CNN tonight.) It turns out the documents in question are positive reports about the success of the Clinton administration’s battle against terrorist plots, not embarrassing stuff that would feed the theory that he attempting some sort of cover-up.

So far Berger has offered no real explanation other than he basically screwed up- I don’t think that’s going to satisfy anybody- but I’m also able to recognize that this guy is under investigation by the FBI and he’d be a moron to say anything beyond what he said. The FBI investigation, one would hope, will get us a more definitive answer. Until then it’s just another attempt at distraction by an increasingly desperate White House.