The Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General just released a report, entitled, “Report of Investigation Regarding Allegations of Mishandling of Classified Documents by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.”
The report focuses on notes Gonzales drafted as White House counsel in a classified briefing of congressional leaders about the NSA surveillance program, as well as draft and final Office of Legal Counsel opinions about the NSA surveillance program and a detainee interrogation program, correspondence from congressional leaders to the Director of Central Intelligence, and memoranda describing legal and operational aspects of the two classified programs.
Despite having been briefed twice on procedures for storing classified information, Gonzales improperly stored documents relating to the NSA program and a secret detainee interrogation program in a safe outside his office at the Justice Department’s Pennsylvania Avenue headquarters, according to the report. At one point, Gonzales took handwritten notes about the NSA program home in his briefcase, and left them there “for an indeterminate amount of time,” the report says. "When he brought the notes back to the Department, he stored these notes, along with other highly classified documents about the NSA surveillance program and a compartmented detainee interrogation program, in a safe outside his office that was not authorized to hold these documents.”
Knowingly removing and storing classified information in an unauthorized location is a federal crime, punishable by fine and up to a year in prison. Gonzales told investigators that he did not know his notes on NSA program were classified. The Justice Department’s National Security Division declined to prosecute Gonzales after reviewing the inspector general’s findings, the report says.
The Associated Press had a story today about a memo by Gonzales’ lawyers discussing the issue. The memo, signed by White & Case’s George Terwilliger III, said Gonzales agrees with the inspector general's findings that his handling of notes and other SCI documents "was not consistent with the department's regulations governing the proper storage and handling of information classified as SCI….Judge Gonzales regrets this lapse."
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