Report: Former AG mishandled classified data

But Justice Dept. declined to bring case vs. Gonzales

Lawyers agree Alberto Gonzales did not protect data.

WASHINGTON - Former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales told investigators that he could not recall whether he took home notes regarding the government's most sensitive national security program and that he did not know they contained classified information, despite his own markings that they were "top secret - eyes only," according to a Justice Department report released yesterday.

Gonzales improperly carried notes about the warrantless wiretapping program in an unlocked briefcase and failed to keep them in a safe at his Northern Virginia home three years ago because he "could not remember the combination," the department's inspector general reported.

A National Security Agency official who reviewed the notes said they contained references to operational aspects of the wiretapping initiative, including a top-secret code word for the program, information that had been "zealously protected" by the agency and was "not a close call" in terms of its sensitivity, the report said.

Gonzales brought the notes home on Feb. 3, 2005, the day he moved from his post as White House counsel to his new job as the nation's chief law enforcement officer, according to the report. They were at his home or in his briefcase for an indeterminate amount of time, investigators said. Ultimately, Gonzales stored them in a safe outside his office that was accessible by people who lacked the requisite security clearances to see them.

Gonzales also stored 17 other classified documents on electronic surveillance and detainee interrogation programs there. In one instance, employees searching for material related to a Freedom of Information Act request in 2006 sifted through the sensitive material in the safe "document by document," the report said.

Mishandling classified material violates Justice Department policies and can result in criminal charges, but prosecutors in the department's National Security Division declined to bring a case after reviewing the allegations and consulting with career officials, spokesman Dean Boyd said.

John M. Conyers Jr., the House Judiciary Committee chairman and a Democrat of Michigan, yesterday called on the Justice Department to "explain clearly why it declined to pursue charges against Mr. Gonzales and what actions it intends to take."

Through his lawyers and advisers, Gonzales characterized the amount of material he possessed as limited and said the lapses were unintentional. He said he followed policies as he understood them during his time at the White House. "He always placed the notes in the most secure place over which he had immediate personal control," attorney George J. Terwilliger III wrote in a memo to Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine.

During his government service, Gonzales received at least two briefings on security procedures and signed a form indicating that negligent handling of sensitive information could "cause irreparable injury to the United States or be used to advantage by a foreign nation." Before he took the notes home, he met with officials at the Justice Command Center, which is set up to house sensitive information, the report said.

The allegations surfaced last year, when lawyers in the White House Counsel's office reviewed Gonzales's Senate testimony about the wiretapping program after lawmakers questioned his veracity. Counsel Fred Fielding and two other lawyers met with Gonzales on July 25, 2007, and later requested that his notes be reviewed. The counsel's office referred the matter to the Justice Department, which dispatched agents to pursue it.

The notes covered an "emergency" meeting that President Bush held with congressional leaders in the White House Situation Room in early 2004, as authority for the warrantless wiretapping plan was set to expire.

Authorities said yesterday that they had shared their findings with the Justice Security and Emergency Planning Staff and with the National Security Agency, which has the authority to revoke Gonzales's security clearance. Gonzales is not subject to internal department discipline because he resigned in August 2007. The inspector general's investigation of that issue is continuing.