The release of the Berger Report, by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, makes the decision by the Department of Justice—to give Berger a slap on the wrist for breach of national security—unexplainable.

The committee’s 60-page report makes it clear that former President Bill Clinton’s national security adviser knew exactly what he was doing and that what he was doing was wrong. The report was released to the public in late December 2006, more than a year after Berger pleaded guilty and was given a criminal sentence for removal of the documents.

When confronted by National Archives officials about the missing documents, Berger said it was possible he threw them in his office trash. But now we learn from the inspector general inquiry that Berger confessed that he placed the documents under a trailer in an accessible construction area outside the archives building and retrieved them later.

For this felonious breach of national security, Berger pleaded guilty to unlawfully removing and retaining classified documents, was fined $50,000, ordered to perform 100 hours of community service, and was barred from access to classified material for three years.

Berger received no jail time for his crime.

No wonder the average American thinks there is a double standard for the rich and powerful!

Throughout this scandal, the press, the public, and law enforcement officials were repeatedly assured that former Berger could not have destroyed any documents that the government did not have copies of in their files.

His conduct was portrayed as an act of buffoonery, not as a breach of national security. At the time, the 911 Commission was also reviewing the documents.

Could it be that Berger was trying to hide the fact that he and Clinton were both “asleep at the wheel” when it came to protecting the United States from the likes of Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda?

Was Berger trying to alter the historical record of the Clinton approach to terrorism from the public and the 9/11 commission?

In the archive files Berger had access to the original, uncopied, and uninventoried documents of Richard Clark, the antiterror NSC official who served in the Clinton administration.

The key excerpt in the report’s executive summary is all you need to read:

“The full extent of Berger’s document removal, however, is not known, and never can be known. The Justice Department cannot be sure that Berger did not remove original documents for which there were no copies or inventory. On three of Berger’s four visits to the Archives, he had access to such documents.”

The travesty is that Berger should have been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Instead, he continues to be a guest on cable talk shows and panels pontificating his views of America’s national security policy.

Thanks to the Justice Department’s failure to fully and vigorously prosecute Berger, he will be tanned, rested, and ready for the next Democratic administration when his plea deal expires in 2008.

Marc Rotterman is a conservative activist and a senior fellow at the John Locke Foundation.