"Sticking Them" in his Pants

Exactly what does this mean?

Berger and his lawyer said he knowingly removed notes he had made while reading anti-terrorism documents by sticking them in his jacket and pants.

Does "sticking them" in his pants mean putting them in his pockets, or literally putting them in the legs of his pants? If it means the latter, that is both odd, and suggestive that he was trying to remove them without detection. And why do some (not all, by any stretch) news accouns note the pants angle?

Source: LAT

Stephen Green has an amusing (and also quite serious in places) riff on the pants thing here

The Chicago Sun-Times, building on an AP story, notes:

However, some drafts of a sensitive after-action report on the Clinton administration's handling of al-Qaida terror threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration are still missing, officials and lawyers told The Associated Press.

This could end up being quite serious.

This version of the story using the phrase "placing them in his jacket and pants" to describe the removal of the documents,

It also notes that

Breuer said Berger believed he was looking at copies of the classified documents, not originals.

Even if that is true, it hardly exonerates Berger, who should full well know that even copies of classificed documents can't be taken out of the archives. And for that matter, since Berger states he "inadvertantly" took the documents, or what relevance is it that he thought they were copies?

CNN's version of the story notes the following:

But the sources close to Berger said there were other copies of the drafts, that the commission had the final version of the report and that Clarke had said there were not significant changes during the drafting process.

Posted by Steven Taylor at July 20, 2024 11:21 AM | TrackBack