'Compounded' His 'Mistake'?

Wow, understatement as heavy as understatement can be. From a story about former President Clinton's national security advisor, Sandy Berger, pleading guilty to intentionally removing classified documents from the National Archives:

Mr. Berger, speaking outside the courthouse, declined to answer any questions regarding his motives. Associates attributed the episode to fatigue and poor judgment, saying he had spent many hours reviewing documents at the National Archives on the two occasions when he took the classified material, in September and October 2003. He removed five versions of the report, they said, because he wanted to compare them side by side in his own office.

The associates acknowledged that he had compounded the mistake by cutting up three of the reports with a pair of scissors at his office and then misleading officials at the National Archives as to what had happened when they confronted him about the missing documents. [emphasis added]

Hard to explain that away. Still, charges that Berger took the documents to prevent the September 11 Commission from seeing them are simply false. According to the Justice Department, the Commission saw all of the original threat assessments described in the reports Berger took. But still, it sure looks bad/stupid/wrong.