© Jack Cashill
AmericanThinker.com - May 23, 2010

eginning with the third of Berger’s four visits to the Archives in September 2003, when Berger was first caught in the act of stealing documents, Paul Brachfeld, the Inspector General of the National Archives tried to alert the Justice Department to the scope and seriousness of the theft.

On January 14, 2004, the day Berger first testified before the 9/11 Commission, Brachfeld met with DOJ attorney Howard Sklamberg. Concerned that Berger had obstructed the 9/11 Commission’s work, Brachfeld wanted assurance that the Commission knew of Berger’s crime and the potential ramifications of it. He did not get it. On March 22, two days before Berger’s public testimony, senior DOJ attorneys John Dion and Bruce Swartz got back to Brachfeld. They informed him that the DOJ was not going to notify the 9/11 Commission of the Berger investigation before Berger’s appearance.

The House report singles out Swartz as the one attorney most adamantly protective of Berger. Swartz refused to admit that Berger could have stolen documents in his first two visits despite Brachfeld’s insistence that he had the means and the motive. Frustrated, Brachfeld called DOJ’s Inspector General Glenn Fine on April 6 and again expressed his concern that the 9/11 Commission remained unaware of Berger’s actions. Again, nothing happened.

Brachfeld never did succeed in persuading the DOJ of the potential seriousness of Berger’s sabotage. As the House report concluded, “The lack of interest in Berger’s first two visits is disturbing.” The DOJ also declined to submit Berger to a polygraph exam as required by his plea agreement.

If these DOJ attorneys were “unacceptably incurious” across the board, one could write off their inaction to bureaucratic sloth. But at the same time Dion and Swartz were cosseting Sandy Berger, they were eagerly campaigning to out the rascal who blew CIA agent Valerie Plame’s imagined cover.

“Those who have worked with Dion say he will not shy away from advocating charges against any high-level Bush administration official if that's where the investigation leads,” read a hopeful AP piece.

Among the colleagues quoted was Dion’s immediate supervisor, Bruce Swartz. Even after Patrick Fitzgerald took over the Plame investigation, Dion and Swartz stayed on the team, Swartz reportedly as second-in-command. Swartz, Sklamberg, Fine and Dion were all held over from the Clinton administration. Although Dion has no obvious record of federal contributions, Fine, Swartz and Sklamberg have only contributed to Democratic candidates in federal races.

Liberated by the DOJ, Berger, along with his Clinton allies, would invest more money and energy in Weldon’s removal than that of any other congressman. And for one good reason. The intrepid Weldon posed a genuine risk to Bill’s legacy and Hillary’s future. By means fair or foul, he had to go.

Unbeknownst to Weldon, the FBI had opened an investigation into his and his daughter’s business interests some time in the spring of 2006, roughly eighteen months after Sloan filed her complaint and just about the time Sestak’s campaign was kicking into high gear.

Although Sloan would claim to be mystified by the FBI’s delay in investigating Weldon, future events would suggest a coordinated effort within the Department of Justice. In the summer or early fall of 2006, The FBI formally referred the Weldon matter to the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section for follow-up. Public Integrity is the home of, among others, Howard Sklamberg.

If Weldon were unaware of the judicial operation against him, he could not miss the political one. On Sunday, September 24, 2006, during former president Bill Clinton’s unhinged performance on FOX News with Chris Wallace, the nation saw just how big were the guns aimed at Weldon. Other than George Bush, Clinton mentioned only one other Republican by name.

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“For postmodernists like Clinton, those in power have the ability to impose their “narrative” on those without power and call it truth.”

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“A three-star admiral,” he announced out of nowhere, “who was on my National Security Council staff, who also fought terror, by the way, is running for the seat of Curt Weldon in Pennsylvania.”

Without meaning to, Clinton also suggested why the war on Weldon was so important. For postmodernists like Clinton, those in power have the ability to impose their “narrative” on those without power and call it truth. To preserve his version of events leading up 9/11 he had dispatched Sandy Berger to the National Archives, at the risk of Berger’s career and reputation, to edit the official record.

Ten days after the FOX interview, On October 4, Clinton descended on Weldon’s Pennsylvania district. "I will not make a single stop in this campaign season that means more to me than this one -- not one," he told a crowd of nearly 900 at a Sestak rally. On this occasion at least, Clinton was telling the truth.

At the time, Weldon, who had secured 59 percent of the vote in 2004, held a seven-point lead in the polls over the novice Sestak. That was not to stand. During the week after Clinton’s visit, events took a less public but more sinister turn. Who orchestrated these events I cannot say for sure. If I were investigating, I would certainly want to question former assistant U.S. attorney Melanie Sloan and the assistant U.S. attorneys within the DOJ who shared her Democratic sympathies, especially Howard Sklamberg, Bruce Swartz, and Glenn Fine.

What we do know is this. On October 13, Greg Gordon of the liberal McClatchy Newspapers Washington Bureau broke a powerful and damning story, namely that the Justice Department was investigating whether Weldon had traded his influence for “lucrative” lobbying contracts for his daughter.

Gordon referred to “two sources,” both anonymous. One he described as “a federal law enforcement official.” The second he did not describe at all. This cagy lack of further detail suggests that the second source may not have been a federal official, at least not at the time.

Although Gordon conceded that “it is possible at this stage of the investigation that nothing will come of it”—nothing ever did--this uncertainty did not stop the McClatchy Newspapers from blasting the anonymous leak nationwide. Still, Gordon had not come looking for this story. Someone had to alert him to it and introduce him to two sources willing to talk.

There could have been no other motivation for this calculated leak than interference in the electoral process. For Weldon, things got ugly quickly. On Monday morning, October 16th, the FBI raided the homes of Weldon’s daughter and a friend, allegedly for fear that documents would be destroyed if they did not do so. The leak prompted this very public raid.

By noon of that same day, a group of nearly twenty Democratic activists were protesting outside Weldon's district office in Upper Darby, carrying matching signs that read, "Caught Red-Handed." This too had to be coordinated. On November 7, Sestak won with 56% of the vote. Americans, we were told, had had enough of that Republican “culture of corruption.”

In December 2006, FBI Director Robert Mueller appeared before a Senate Judiciary Committee with serious egg on his face. According to the Associated Press, he confessed to being "exceptionally disappointed” about the leak made public on October 13, 2006 that Pennsylvania congressman Curt Weldon was under investigation for influence peddling.

The question that the media should have asked is “Why Weldon?” What about the man inspired Sandy Berger, the Clintons, the Democratic Alliance, CREW, and just about every key player in the Clinton national security apparatus to want him gone.

The question the media should be asking now is “Why Sestak?”

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