Report of investigation regarding allegations of mishandling of classified documents by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [electronic resource] / Office of the Inspector General, Oversight and Review Division.

[Washington, D.C.] : U.S. Dept. of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2008.

29 p. : digital, PDF file.

This item is a work of the United States government. Under Section 105 of the United States Copyright Act, it is not subject to copyright.

"This report describes the investigation by the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG) into allegations that Alberto Gonzales mishandled classified documents while serving as the Attorney General. The matter was referred to the OIG by Kenneth Wainstein, former Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division, on August 10, 2007. The White House Counsel's Office had initially notified the Department of Justice (Department) about the matter, and Wainstein, after consultation with other senior Department officials, referred the matter to the OIG for investigation. The allegations initially concerned Gonzales's handling of a document that contained classified information about a sensitive intelligence program generally referred to in this report as the NSA surveillance program. The surveillance program is administered by the National Security Agency (NSA) and is classified at the Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) level. During the course of the OIG investigation, we learned of several other classified documents that Gonzales may have mishandled. Most of these documents also concerned the NSA surveillance program. Other documents concerned a detainee interrogation program also classified at the TS/SCI level. We investigated Gonzales's handling of these documents as well. To conduct this investigation, the OIG interviewed Gonzales on three occasions. Gonzales voluntarily agreed to an initial interview and two follow-up interviews. We also interviewed attorneys in the White House Counsel's Office, members of Gonzales's staff within the Office of the Attorney General (OAG), and other officials in the Department knowledgeable about the handling of classified documents in general and the handling of the specific documents at issue in this investigation. We also reviewed all of the classified documents at issue in this matter. The classified materials that are the subject of this investigation consist of notes that Gonzales drafted to memorialize a classified briefing of congressional leaders about the NSA surveillance program when Gonzales was the White House Counsel; draft and final Office of Legal Counsel opinions about both the NSA surveillance program and a detainee interrogation program; correspondence from congressional leaders to the Director of Central Intelligence; and other memoranda describing legal and operational aspects of the two classified programs. This report summarizes the results of the OIG's investigation."

Books / Online

English

July 17, 2009

Includes bibliographical references.