Berger pleaded guilty in April to a misdemeanor charge of removing classified material from a government archive, admitting he took five copies of a 2000 assessment of antiterrorism efforts on two separate visits to the archives in 2003 and destroyed three of them. He also admitted to improperly removing handwritten notes he had taken at the facility.
Although Justice Department prosecutors and Berger’s attorneys had jointly proposed a $10,000 fine after Berger pleaded guilty, Robinson said the punishment she handed down would more “sufficiently reflect the seriousness of the offense.”
“My actions . . . were wrong. They were foolish. I deeply regret them, and I have every day since,” Berger told Robinson. “I let considerations of personal convenience override clear rules of handling classified material.”
Posted September 16, 2005.