U.S. Department of Justice 

Office of the Inspector General 

Report of Investigation Regarding 

Allegations of Mishandling of 

Classified Documents by 

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales 

Office of the Inspector General 

Oversight and Review Division 

September 2, 2008 

 

 

 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 

I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................... 1

II. BACKGROUND................................................................................. 2

A. Gonzales’s Professional Background........................................ 2

B. Overview of National Security Information Classification.......... 3

C. Security Facilities Available to Gonzales as Attorney General 

for the Handling of Classified Materials ................................... 4

1. Justice Department ....................................................... 4

2. Gonzales’s Residences.................................................... 5

D. Security Briefings Received by Gonzales as White House 

Counsel and as Attorney General ............................................ 7

III. GONZALES’S HANDLING OF CERTAIN CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS... 8

A. Creation and Handling of the Handwritten Notes as 

White House Counsel .............................................................. 8

B. Gonzales’s Handling of the Handwritten Notes After He 

Was Sworn In As Attorney General ........................................ 11

C. Gonzales’s Handling of the Notes and Other SCI Documents 

as Attorney General............................................................... 14

1. OAG practices concerning the OAG safe....................... 14

2. Gonzales’s statements to White House attorneys and 

Justice Department officials about the notes................ 17

3. Storage of other TS/SCI documents ............................. 20

IV. OIG ANALYSIS................................................................................ 21

A. Gonzales Took the Classified Notes to His Residence ............. 22

B. Storing the Notes and Other TS/SCI Materials Outside of a 

SCIF...................................................................................... 25

C. Justice Department Security Regulations .............................. 26

V. CONCLUSION................................................................................. 28
I. INTRODUCTION 

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. Section II 

provides background information related to this matter, including an overview 

of classification issues for National Security Information, a description of the 

facilities available to Gonzales as Attorney General for storing classified 

1 

1
information, and a summary of pertinent security briefings provided to 

Gonzales as White House Counsel and as Attorney General. 

In Section III of this report we discuss the facts surrounding Gonzales’s 

creation and handling of the classified handwritten notes that caused this 

matter to be referred to the OIG, as well as his handling of the other classified 

documents at issue in this matter. We also include a discussion of Gonzales’s 

familiarity with and use of the facilities available to him for the storage of 

classified materials. 

In Section IV we provide our analysis of Gonzales’s actions regarding the 

handling of the classified material. Section V contains our conclusions. 

In sum, our investigation concluded that Gonzales mishandled classified 

materials regarding two highly sensitive compartmented programs. We found 

that Gonzales took his classified handwritten notes home and stored them 

there for an indeterminate period of time. The notes contained operational 

aspects and other information about the NSA surveillance program that is 

classified at the TS/SCI level. By regulation, such material must be stored in a 

Sensitive Compartmented Storage Facility (SCIF). At the time he took these 

materials home, Gonzales did not have a SCIF at his house. Although 

Gonzales did have a safe at his residence at this time, we found that he did not 

use it to store the notes. 

We also found that Gonzales improperly stored other highly classified 

documents about the two compartmented programs in a safe at the 

Department that was not located in a SCIF. Several employees in the OAG had 

access to the safe where Gonzales stored the documents even though they 

lacked the necessary security clearances for this information. We concluded 

that Gonzales’s mishandling of both the notes and the other classified 

documents violated Department security requirements and procedures. 

II. BACKGROUND 

A. Gonzales’s Professional Background 

After serving as a partner in a Texas law firm, Alberto Gonzales served as 

General Counsel to the Governor of Texas, George Bush, from 1995 to 1997. 

From 1997 to 1999, he served as the Texas Secretary of State. In 1999, 

Governor Bush appointed Gonzales to the Texas Supreme Court. Gonzales 

served as White House Counsel for President Bush from January 2001 until 

February 3, 2005, when Gonzales was sworn in as Attorney General. Gonzales 

resigned as Attorney General on September 17, 2007. 

2 

2
B. Overview of National Security Information Classification 

According to Executive Order 12958, as amended, (EO 12958, as 

amended) National Security Information can be classified at one of the 

following three levels:1

“Confidential” applies to “information, the unauthorized disclosure 

of which reasonably could be expected to cause damage to the 

national security that the original classification authority is able to 

identify or describe.” 

“Secret” applies to “information, the unauthorized disclosure of 

which reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage to 

the national security that the original classification authority is 

able to identify or describe.” 

“Top Secret” applies to “information, the unauthorized disclosure of 

which reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave 

damage to the national security that the original classification 

authority is able to identify or describe.” 

Access to classified material may be further restricted if the material 

pertains to a Special Access Program, defined as “a program established for a 

specific class of classified information that imposes safeguarding and access 

requirements that exceed those normally required for information at the same 

classification level.” Information concerning a Special Access Program is 

referred to as Sensitive Compartmented Information or SCI information. 

Classified information may be compartmented within a classification 

level. Thus, TS/SCI is information classified at the Top Secret (TS) level that is 

subject to the enhanced controls applicable to Sensitive Compartmented 

Information. For instance, TS material must either be “under the personal 

control of an authorized or appropriately cleared person” or “guarded or stored 

in a locked security container,” typically a General Services Administrationapproved safe. See DOJ Security Program Operation Manual at 6-202. 

However, SCI material must be stored in a SCIF irrespective of its classification 

level. According to Director of Central Intelligence Directive No. 6/9 (Nov. 18, 

2002), a SCIF is a specially constructed room or other structure “intended to 

prevent as well as detect visual, acoustical, technical, and physical access by 

unauthorized persons.” 

Under EO 12958, as amended, classified information at any level may be 

either “original” or “derivative.” Original classification means that an initial 

 1 Executive Order 12958 (April 17, 1995), was amended by Executive Order 13292 

(March 25, 2003). 

3 

3
determination has been made that the “information requires, in the interest of 

national security, protection against unauthorized disclosure.” Derivative 

classification refers to “incorporating, paraphrasing, restating or generating in 

new form information that is already classified.” Derivative classified 

information must be marked in a manner consistent with the markings of the 

source information and handled in accordance with the original classification 

decisions. See also 28 C.F.R. § 17.26(a)(persons need not possess original 

classification authority to derivatively classify information based on source 

documents or classification guides). 

Each component within the Department, including the OAG, has a 

Security Programs Manager (SPM) available to provide guidance to employees 

on the proper handling and storage procedures for classified information. 

According to DOJ Order 2600.2C, SPMs are responsible for “the management 

and coordination of all Department security programs and plans within their 

respective organizations.” These responsibilities include ensuring that 

employees “are fully informed and periodically reminded of their 

responsibilities” concerning Department security programs, and “[o]bserving, 

enforcing, and when necessary, implementing security regulations or 

procedures pertaining to the classification, . . . safeguarding, handling, and 

storage of classified national security information, SCI, and other DOJ sensitive 

material.” 

C. Security Facilities Available to Gonzales as Attorney General 

for the Handling of Classified Materials 

1. Justice Department 

The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) is located in the Robert F. 

Kennedy Main Justice Building in Washington, D.C. The Attorney General’s 

staff occupies offices along two corridors emanating from the Attorney 

General’s suite.2 According to the SPM for the OAG, there are five safes and 

one SCIF in the OAG.3 The SPM and other OAG witnesses stated that one safe 

is located in a small office within the Attorney General’s suite, and the other 

four are located in other offices throughout the OAG. These five safes are 

 2 For purposes of this report, we refer to the Attorney General’s personal office and 

adjacent offices used by his personal and special assistants as the “Attorney General’s suite.” 

3 The SPM for the OAG is also the OAG Office Manager. She told the OIG that her 

duties as SPM include managing requests for security clearances and ensuring that classified 

material is handled properly. She also said she ensures that security codes to equipment and 

offices are changed when necessary and acts as the OAG’s liaison with the Department’s 

Security Office. The SPM stated that while she is available to answer questions regarding the 

proper handling of classified materials and other security issues, she does not provide security 

briefings to OAG staff. Rather, these briefings are handled by the Department’s Security and 

Emergency Planning Staff (SEPS). 

4 

4
certified for storing materials classified up to the TS level, but they cannot be 

used to store SCI material because they are not housed within a SCIF. The 

safe in the small office within the Attorney General’s suite is significant to this 

investigation because it is where Gonzales acknowledged to the OIG he stored 

the handwritten notes and other SCI documents described in this report. We 

refer to this safe in this report as the OAG safe. 

The SPM told us that the OAG also has a small storage SCIF, containing 

two additional safes, which is located approximately five offices down a corridor 

from the Attorney General’s personal office. The SPM stated that the SCIF was 

the only facility available to Gonzales within the OAG certified for the storage of 

SCI materials, a fact confirmed to us by the Director of the Department’s 

Security and Emergency Planning Staff (SEPS).4 Both the SPM and the SEPS 

Director told the OIG that the Justice Command Center, a SCIF facility located 

one floor above the OAG and available to Gonzales, was also certified for 

storage of SCI materials.5

2. Gonzales’s Residences 

During his tenure as the Attorney General, Gonzales first lived at a 

residence in Vienna, Virginia. Gonzales stated that in August 2005 he moved 

to another residence in the Washington area. 

The OIG interviewed a Program Manager for the Department’s Technical 

Surveillance Countermeasures Program who was responsible for the 

installation and removal of security equipment for senior Department officials, 

including Gonzales. The Program Manager told the OIG that as White House 

Counsel, Gonzales had been provided with a safe and a shredder by the 

Executive Office of the President (EOP) at his Vienna, Virginia residence.6 

Gonzales became the Attorney General on February 3, 2005. According 

to the Program Manager, on February 26, 2005, all White House security 

equipment provided to Gonzales for his residence, with the exception of the 

EOP safe, was removed and replaced with DOJ equipment. 

The Program Manager stated that in order to minimize traffic in and out 

of Gonzales’s residence, he arranged with the EOP’s Security Office to keep the 

 4 SEPS is responsible for developing policy, methods, and procedures for the 

implementation of security programs for the Department. 

5 The Justice Command Center is a secure 24-hour facility that operates in support of 

the Department’s law enforcement and national security programs. 

6 The Program Manager stated that the White House Communications Agency had also 

supplied Gonzales with a secure phone and a secure facsimile machine for his Vienna 

residence. 

5 

5
EOP safe at Gonzales’s residence and to reimburse the EOP with a DOJ safe. 

Although an e-mail from the Program Manager to his supervisor indicates that 

Gonzales was at home on February 26, 2005, when the White House 

equipment was removed from his residence, Gonzales told the OIG that he had 

no recollection of the removal of the White House equipment and the 

installation of the DOJ equipment, and that he was unaware of the decision to 

retain the White House-provided safe at his residence. 

The Program Manager said that in early March 2005 a member of 

Gonzales’s security detail called him to ask for the combination to Gonzales’s 

safe because Gonzales could not open it.7 The Program Manager told us he 

attempted to find out the combination to the safe from the EOP but that the 

EOP had no records matching the bar code and serial number for Gonzales’s 

safe. The Program Manager said he also tried the factory default setting for the 

combination, as well as several variations of that setting, without success. 

The Program Manager also provided the OIG with a March 15, 2005, email from an EOP official to him stating that “[t]he AG’s assistant . . . said the 

AG does not know the combination either.” The assistant referenced in the email told the OIG that she had no recollection of discussing this safe or its 

combination with Gonzales. 

Gonzales told the OIG that he had no specific recollection of ever using 

the White House-provided safe in his Vienna residence, and in any event did 

not recall whether the safe was suitable for the storage of TS material. 

Gonzales also said he did not recall whether Department or FBI security 

personnel were unable to open the safe, nor did he recall being asked by 

anyone for the combination to it. Gonzales also said he did not recall being 

asked for the combination by his assistant, but stated that he had no reason to 

dispute that the assistant had indicated that Gonzales did not know the 

combination. He said it was possible he had forgotten the combination to the 

safe. 

Gonzales moved to a new residence in the Washington area in August 

2005. According to the Program Manager, the EOP safe was removed from 

Gonzales’s former residence, still unopened, and eventually returned to the 

White House. Both the Program Manager and the Director of SEPS stated that 

on August 12, 2005, Gonzales’s secure telephone, facsimile machine and 

shredder were moved to the new residence and a new Department safe was 

 7 According to the Program Manager, the security detail thought that the Program 

Manager had reset the combination to the safe at some point. However, the Program Manager 

told the detail that he had not done so and that the combination to the safe should have been 

the same as it was before the Department’s involvement. 

6 

6
installed there.8 The Director of SEPS told the OIG that the Department safe 

was certified for the storage of materials up to the TS level but could not be 

used to store SCI materials because the safe was not housed within a SCIF. 

The Director also stated that the Department never constructed a SCIF in 

Gonzales’s residences. 

D. Security Briefings Received by Gonzales as White House 

Counsel and as Attorney General 

The White House Counsel’s Office informed the OIG that Gonzales 

received an SCI briefing on January 17, 2001, just prior to becoming the White 

House Counsel. Gonzales received his formal TS/SCI clearance in the White 

House on January 23, 2001. Gonzales acknowledged in his interview with the 

OIG that all White House personnel receive a security briefing about 

procedures “consistent with handling classified information.” However, he said 

that he did not recall this general briefing or a briefing specifically concerning 

SCI at the White House. The OIG confirmed through the White House 

Counsel’s Office that Gonzales signed a form acknowledging that he received 

an SCI briefing on January 17, 2001.9

Gonzales also received another SCI security briefing when he became 

Attorney General. Gonzales was confirmed by the Senate on February 3, 2005, 

and was sworn in as Attorney General that day. During the evening of 

February 3, Gonzales received an SCI briefing in the Justice Command Center 

to authorize his access to several Special Access Programs. 

According to the Director of SEPS, who was present at the briefing, the 

briefing consisted of a PowerPoint presentation explaining the rights and 

obligations of persons with SCI clearance, how SCI material must be stored 

and under what conditions SCI can be discussed, proper SCI document control 

and transmission, and proper communication and processing of SCI material. 

The OIG reviewed the PowerPoint presentation given to Gonzales during his 

briefing. Of particular relevance to this investigation, the presentation covered 

the requirement that SCI can be discussed and stored “only in an accredited 

SCI facility (SCIF)” and also advised that after-hours storage of SCI is available 

at the Justice Command Center. 

Immediately following the briefing, Gonzales signed a Form 4414 SCI 

Nondisclosure Agreement. In signing the SCI Nondisclosure Agreement, 

Gonzales affirmed that he “received a security indoctrination concerning the 

 8 The safe was removed from this residence on September 17, 2007, upon Gonzales’s 

resignation as Attorney General. 

9 The White House Counsel’s Office was unable to provide us more details on the 

contents of the White House SCI briefing for Gonzales. 

7 

7
nature and protection of SCI,” and had “been advised that the unauthorized 

disclosure, unauthorized retention, or negligent handling of SCI . . . could 

cause irreparable injury to the United States or be used to advantage by a 

foreign nation.” The OIG showed Gonzales a copy of his signed SCI 

Nondisclosure Agreement, and he confirmed that the signature on the 

document was his. 

Despite his acknowledgement of his signature on the Nondisclosure 

Agreement form, Gonzales told us he did not recall attending any security 

briefings upon becoming Attorney General, including the briefing he received 

on his first day as the Attorney General in connection with receiving his 

TS/SCI security clearance at the Department and his signing the SCI 

Nondisclosure Agreement. However, during his OIG interview, Gonzales stated 

to us that he had a “general understanding” of the proper handling of SCI 

material and said that he “understood the importance of handling classified 

information,” especially after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. 

Gonzales also stated that he understood his obligations as Attorney General 

and that he needed to “lead by example” in his handling of sensitive materials. 

III. GONZALES’S HANDLING OF CERTAIN CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS 

In this section of the report, we discuss the facts surrounding Gonzales’s 

creation and handling of the handwritten notes about the NSA surveillance 

program, his handling of other classified documents about the NSA program 

and a detainee interrogation program that Gonzales had acquired during his 

tenure as Attorney General, and his familiarity with and use of the facilities 

available to him for the proper handling of these documents. 

A. Creation and Handling of the Handwritten Notes as White 

House Counsel 

Early in his tenure as White House Counsel, Gonzales worked with 

officials in the Intelligence Community on the NSA surveillance program. 

Gonzales told us that he was personally involved in the creation and 

development of the program and thus was not formally “read in” to the program 

as subsequent participants were.10 

As a consequence of Gonzales’s involvement with the NSA surveillance 

program both as White House Counsel and as Attorney General, Gonzales 

reviewed numerous documents marked as TS with SCI designations concerning 

 10 The process of being “read in” to a compartmented program generally entails 

receiving a briefing about the program followed by a formal acknowledgement of the briefing, 

usually indicated by the signing of a Nondisclosure Agreement binding the individual to 

obligations regarding the handling and use of information concerning the program. 

8 

8
the NSA surveillance program before and after March 2004 when he drafted the 

notes at issue in this matter. Regarding his understanding of the classification 

of the NSA surveillance program, Gonzales told the OIG that he knew it was 

“very, very limited access.” However, he stated he could not say whether the 

program was TS or TS/SCI, although he said he knew it was of the highest 

level of secrecy.11 Gonzales said he “assumed” documents related to the 

program bore classification markings that would have indicated the precise 

classification of the program, but that he did not create such documents, so he 

could not be certain. 

One of the documents at issue in this investigation is Gonzales’s 

handwritten notes that he created in connection with a dispute between the 

Department and the White House concerning the legal reasoning supporting 

the NSA surveillance program. According to public testimony before 

congressional committees, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft had been 

hospitalized with acute pancreatitis on March 4, 2004, and Deputy Attorney 

General James Comey, as Acting Attorney General, would not certify the 

legality of a Presidential order to reauthorize the surveillance program. 

Gonzales told the OIG that on March 10, 2004, a meeting was held to inform 

congressional leaders of Comey’s position and to explore legislative solutions to 

the impasse. 

On the afternoon of Wednesday, March 10, 2004, Gonzales and other 

White House and intelligence agency officials, including the Vice President and 

NSA Director Michael Hayden, convened an “emergency meeting” in the White 

House Situation Room with Senate Majority and Minority Leaders Bill Frist and 

Tom Daschle; Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Leader Pat Roberts and 

Ranking Member Jay Rockefeller; Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and 

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi; and House Permanent Select Committee 

on Intelligence Chairman Porter Goss and Ranking Member Jane Harman.12 

See Transcript of Gonzales’s Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, 

July 24, 2007. Gonzales told the OIG that in addition to a discussion of 

Comey’s decision not to certify the program, the congressional leadership 

briefing also included a description of certain operational details of the 

surveillance program. Gonzales stated that he did not recall what briefing 

materials were used during the meeting or whether there were any indications 

 11 Gonzales publicly has described the program as “one of the most highly protected 

[programs] in the United States government” and as a “very, very secretive, protected program.” 

See, e.g., Transcript of Attorney General Interview on CBS Early Show, December 19, 2005, 

available at http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/readingroom/surveillance.htm. 

12 This group of Congressional leaders was known informally as the “Gang of Eight.” 

9 

9
that the meeting concerned a TS/SCI program.13 He stated that the meeting 

was held in the White House Situation Room, which is a SCIF. 

Gonzales told the OIG that President Bush directed him to memorialize 

the March 10, 2004, meeting. Gonzales stated that he drafted notes about the 

meeting in a spiral notebook in his White House Counsel’s Office within a few 

days of the meeting, probably on the weekend immediately following the 

meeting. Gonzales stated that he wrote the notes in a single sitting except for 

one line, which he told us he wrote within the next day. Gonzales said that his 

intent in drafting the notes was to record the reactions of the congressional 

leaders during the meeting, as opposed to recording any operational details 

about the program that were discussed. In the notes, Gonzales listed who was 

present, followed by a general summary of the briefing given to the 

congressional leaders by intelligence agency officials, and the congressional 

leaders’ responses to the briefing. However, Gonzales’s summary also 

referenced TS/SCI operational aspects of the program by his use of specific 

terms associated with the program. The notes also included the SCI codeword 

used to identify the program. Gonzales did not apply any classification 

markings to the notes.14

Gonzales told the OIG that he stored the notes in his safe in the West 

Wing of the White House, a location Gonzales described as very secure and 

accessible only by himself and possibly his confidential assistant.15 He said he 

regarded the notes as “sensitive” because the President had asked him to write 

them, and accordingly he “treated [the notes] as classified.” However, Gonzales 

said he did not recall thinking that the notes were classified and said that he 

did not think to mark the notes as classified. Gonzales told the OIG that he 

used two envelopes to double-wrap the notes. Gonzales stated he may have 

written an abbreviation for the codeword of the program on the inner envelope. 

 13 An NSA official who was present at this briefing told the OIG that briefing materials 

about the NSA surveillance program were handed out to the participants at the briefing and 

that these materials were marked as TS with SCI designations. The OIG reviewed a copy of the 

briefing materials and confirmed the presence of the TS/SCI markings. 

14 In July 2007, after several Department and White House officials became aware of 

Gonzales’s notes, the notes were reviewed by two NSA officials, one of whom is an Original 

Classifying Authority for the NSA surveillance program, to determine whether the notes include 

any classified information. The NSA officials determined that 3 of 21 paragraphs in the notes 

contain SCI information about the NSA surveillance program, 1 paragraph contains SCI 

information about signals intelligence, and the remaining paragraphs are unclassified. These 

NSA officials told the OIG that the three paragraphs about the NSA surveillance program 

contain SCI information based on references to operational aspects of the program as well as 

the use of the codeword for the program in conjunction with these operational aspects. The 

other information included in the notes that was deemed classified by the NSA cannot be 

described in this unclassified report. 

15 Gonzales told the OIG he was fairly certain his confidential assistant would not have 

been briefed in to the NSA surveillance program referred to in the notes.

10

10
On the outer envelope Gonzales said he wrote “AG – EYES ONLY – TOP 

SECRET.” 

Gonzales stated that he stored the notes in the White House safe through 

the remainder of his tenure as White House Counsel. According to White 

House attorneys interviewed by the OIG, the safe used by Gonzales was located 

in the office assigned to the White House Counsel, which is a SCIF. 

B. Gonzales’s Handling of the Handwritten Notes After He Was 

Sworn In As Attorney General 

On the afternoon of February 3, 2005, Gonzales was sworn in as the 

Attorney General. Gonzales told us that on that day he personally took the 

handwritten notes, still double-wrapped, from the White House to the Justice 

Department after his swearing-in at the White House. Gonzales said he arrived 

at the Justice Department in the early evening accompanied by his FBI 

security detail, two White House aides, and his wife. He told the OIG that he 

did not recall whether any OAG staff were present when he arrived at the 

Attorney General’s suite. Gonzales said that his White House possessions had 

been moved to the Department in boxes, but could not recall who had moved 

them. He stated that he would not have placed the handwritten notes in any of 

these boxes, and would have kept them in his briefcase during the ride from 

the White House to the Department. Gonzales told us he did not recall how 

long he remained at the Department on the evening of his swearing-in. 

Gonzales stated he could not recall where he stored the notes after he 

arrived at the Department. Gonzales described to us the OAG safe located in 

the office just outside the Attorney General’s office, but stated that he did not 

recall accessing the safe or receiving the combination to this safe or giving the 

notes to anyone to store while at the Department that evening. 

We therefore sought to determine whether anyone who was with 

Gonzales on the night he first arrived at the Department opened the safe for 

him to store the notes. We found no evidence that anyone did so. The OAG 

SPM told us that she and several other OAG staff were present in the suite 

when Gonzales moved in that evening. The SPM said that she was the only 

person there who had the combination to the safe when Gonzales was at the 

Department that evening. She said that she did not give the combination to 

anyone that evening, and never provided the combination to or opened the safe 

for Gonzales. The SPM also told us that Gonzales did not ask her to open the 

safe or any other storage facility for him that evening. 

We determined through witness testimony that a total of four White 

House aides may have accompanied Gonzales to the Department on the 

evening of February 3, 2005. Both Gonzales and the SPM told us that at least 

two of Gonzales’s aides from the White House Counsel’s Office accompanied 

11

11
Gonzales to the Department that evening. One of these aides served as 

Gonzales’s first special assistant for his first 4 months as Attorney General. 

This first special assistant told us she received the combination to the safe 

from the SPM within the first couple of days after February 3, 2005, but not on 

that evening. She also told us she may have given the combination to Gonzales 

after she received it, and that he personally accessed the safe on a daily basis 

during her 4-month tenure as his special assistant. She stated that she never 

accessed the safe during this period, and that Gonzales generally maintained 

and stored his own documents, including classified documents. 

Another aide who may have accompanied Gonzales to the Department 

that evening became Gonzales’s first personal assistant in the OAG. He told us 

through his counsel that he did not specifically recall whether he came to the 

Department with Gonzales on the evening of February 3, 2005. However, the 

aide also stated that he did not recall ever receiving a combination to any safe 

within the OAG.16

During the OIG’s initial interview with Gonzales, we asked him whether 

he took the notes home with him that evening. Gonzales said he did not recall. 

However, he also said that if he did not have the ability to store the notes in the 

safe outside his OAG office that evening, he would have taken the notes home 

“of necessity.” Gonzales said that if he took the notes home, he would have left 

the notes in his briefcase in his office at his residence, adding that he did not 

recall if he had a safe in his residence at that time. Gonzales said that the 

briefcase in which he would have kept the notes had a lock, but that he did not 

always use the lock. 

Subsequent to our initial interview with Gonzales, and as described 

above, the OIG learned that Gonzales did have a safe in his Vienna residence 

but that in early March 2005 Department officials became aware that Gonzales 

could not open it. When we informed Gonzales of these facts in a subsequent 

interview, Gonzales stated that he had no specific recollection of ever using the 

safe in his Vienna residence.17 We asked him whether these facts concerning 

the safe in his Vienna residence changed his recollection of how he handled the 

notes on February 3, 2005, and he said they did not. 

 16 The OIG determined through witness testimony that a third White House aide may 

have also accompanied Gonzales to the Department that evening. This third aide also joined 

the OAG upon Gonzales’s confirmation as Attorney General. He told us that he did not recall 

whether the office just outside of Gonzales’s office contained a safe, and in any event did not 

recall receiving the combination to that safe. The fourth aide identified by witnesses as 

accompanying Gonzales to the Justice Department that evening told us he was not aware of or 

did not recall a safe in the office by Gonzales’s office and in any event never received a 

combination to it. 

17 Because the notes contained SCI material, Gonzales was required to store them in a 

SCIF, a feature his residence did not have. 

12

12
Gonzales said that if he brought the notes home with him, he would have 

brought them back to the Department the next day and had them stored in the 

safe outside his office. However, he said he had no specific recollection of 

doing so. In addition, the SPM told us that she was the only person in the OAG 

with the combination to the OAG office safe for some period of time after 

Gonzales arrived, although she could not recall the duration of this period. As 

noted, the SPM told us she never provided Gonzales with the combination to 

the safe. As also discussed, the first special assistant told us that she received 

the combination to the safe from the SPM within the first couple of days after 

February 3, 2005, and that she may have given it to Gonzales at some point 

thereafter. 

We also asked Gonzales why on that first evening he did not leave the 

notes in the Justice Command Center, a facility available to him for storage of 

TS/SCI materials. Gonzales responded that he did not recall thinking about it, 

and that he might not have “felt comfortable” leaving the notes there at that 

time. However, as noted above, during Gonzales’s SCI briefing that he received 

that first evening, he was informed that after-hours storage of SCI materials 

was available at the Justice Command Center. 

We also asked Gonzales why he removed the notes from the White House 

in the first instance. Gonzales said his decision to take the notes with him 

when he left the White House was “instinctive,” and that he wanted to “protect” 

the notes. He also stated that his decision to take the notes was in part based 

on the fact that he was remaining with the federal government and would 

continue to be involved with the NSA surveillance program as Attorney 

General. Gonzales said that these were the only materials related to the NSA 

surveillance program that he brought with him from the White House, and that 

he always handled the notes himself and did not allow anyone else to handle 

them. 

However, Gonzales also stated that he considered the notes to be a 

“Presidential record.”18 Gonzales said he did not seek permission from White 

House officials to take the notes from the White House when he became 

Attorney General, and no one at the White House knew he had taken them 

with him. 

 18 The Presidential Records Act of 1978 governs the custody and management of official 

Presidential and Vice Presidential documents. See 44 U.S.C. §§ 2201-2207. “Presidential 

records” are defined, in relevant part, as “documentary materials . . . created or received by the 

President, his immediate staff, or a unit or individual of the Executive Office of the President 

whose function is to advise and assist the President, in the course of conducting activities 

which relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other 

official or ceremonial duties of the President.” Id. at § 2201(2). 

13

13
C. Gonzales’s Handling of the Notes and Other SCI Documents as 

Attorney General 

1. OAG practices concerning the OAG safe 

Gonzales told the OIG that at some point after he became Attorney 

General – whether on the night of his swearing-in or some time thereafter – he 

stored the handwritten notes and the other TS/SCI materials at issue in this 

investigation in the OAG safe located in the office just outside his personal 

office. Gonzales said he knew that was where he stored these notes because he 

retrieved them from the safe sometime in May or June 2007 in connection with 

a congressional hearing about the NSA surveillance program. Gonzales also 

said that he retrieved these other documents from the safe to give to the 

Department’s Office of Legal Counsel shortly before his departure as the 

Attorney General. 

Gonzales told the OIG he believed it was appropriate to store the 

documents in the safe outside his office, and that he had never been told 

otherwise. He described the Attorney General’s suite where the safe was 

located as a “very secure area” with “very limited access.” However, with the 

exception of the notes, all of the documents at issue in this investigation had 

cover sheets and header and footer markings indicating they were TS with SCI 

designations and, as noted above, the safe was not authorized for the storage of 

TS/SCI materials because it was not located in a SCIF. 

We asked Gonzales what he knew about the storage requirements for 

TS/SCI information. Gonzales told us he was aware that TS/SCI may only be 

discussed with others cleared to have access to the information, and that 

TS/SCI materials must be marked and stored in a particular way. However, 

Gonzales stated that while serving as Attorney General he was not aware that 

TS/SCI material had to be stored in a SCIF, although he has since been made 

aware of this requirement. In addition, as noted above, Gonzales told the OIG 

that he did not remember receiving the SCI briefing in February 2005, although 

he acknowledged his signature on the SCI Nondisclosure Agreement form. 

That briefing, which he attended on the day he brought the notes to the 

Department, included instruction on the requirement that TS/SCI information 

must be stored in a SCIF. 

Gonzales also told the OIG that he was unaware that the OAG had a 

SCIF. During his interview with the OIG, he asked us to point out its location 

on a floor plan. (The SCIF is located approximately five offices down a corridor 

from the Attorney General’s personal office.) The OAG SPM told us that she 

could not recall whether she ever informed Gonzales of the SCIF’s existence or 

location. 

14

14
We also sought to determine who besides Gonzales had the combination 

to or otherwise had access to the contents of the safe in which he stored the 

handwritten notes regarding the NSA surveillance program and the other 

TS/SCI documents. The SPM stated that one of Gonzales’s personal assistants 

and his two special assistants had the combination to the safe.19 The SPM 

said she seriously doubted that employees other than the personal assistant 

and special assistants would have been allowed access to this safe, but stated 

she could not be certain the combination had not been given to others. The 

SPM also said that although she and her backup SPM had the combination to 

this safe, neither had ever opened it. 

We determined through the NSA that none of the persons besides 

Gonzales who had the combination to the safe where he stored the notes and 

other TS/SCI documents had been read into the NSA surveillance program. 

We also determined that those having access to the safe in the OAG over 

Gonzales’s tenure included his five special and personal assistants, the SPM, 

and the back-up SPM. We asked Gonzales whether he knew if any of his 

assistants had been read into the NSA surveillance program. He told us that 

he did not know, but expressed doubt that they had been. 

We interviewed the special assistant who worked for Gonzales from mid2005 through August 2007, the month before Gonzales resigned as Attorney 

General, as well as the personal assistant who worked for Gonzales from 

August 2006 through Gonzales’s departure as Attorney General. The special 

assistant stated that Gonzales handled very few classified documents on a dayto-day basis, and that she had primary responsibility for facilitating the proper 

storage of these materials. She stated that she had no knowledge of Gonzales 

maintaining classified materials anywhere in the OAG other than in the OAG 

safe by his office. 

Gonzales and his special and personal assistants gave us varying 

accounts of the extent to which the assistants retrieved documents from the 

OAG safe for Gonzales. Gonzales told us he never asked his assistants to 

retrieve materials from the safe for him because he did not think they would be 

able to identify what he needed. Consistent with Gonzales’s recollection, the 

special assistant during Gonzales’s first 4 months as Attorney General stated 

that she never accessed the safe during this period. Further, the personal 

assistant who worked for Gonzales from August 2006 through the end of 

Gonzales’s tenure at Attorney General told us he did not recall retrieving 

documents from the safe for Gonzales. In contrast, Gonzales’s special 

assistant from mid-2005 through August 2007 told us that both she and the 

personal assistant retrieved classified documents from the safe for Gonzales to 

 19 Gonzales told us he had a total of two personal assistants and three special 

assistants who served at various times over the course of his tenure as Attorney General. 

15

15
review, and then returned the documents to the safe when Gonzales was 

finished, although this happened only a few times. 

Gonzales stated that he would either open the safe himself or ask an 

assistant to open it for him. Both the special assistant from mid-2005 through 

August 2007 and the personal assistant who worked for Gonzales from August 

2006 through Gonzales’s departure as Attorney General told us they sometimes 

opened the safe and waited while Gonzales looked through its contents for 

materials he wished to review. The special assistant also told us that she never 

saw Gonzales personally open the safe. However, as noted above, Gonzales’s 

special assistant during his first 4 months as the Attorney General told us that 

Gonzales used the safe daily and that she saw him open it several times. 

Gonzales’s special assistant from mid-2005 through August 2007 told us 

that all documents in the OAG safe appeared to be marked with cover sheets. 

She also told us that all the materials in the safe appeared to be “opened and 

read,” and she did not remember seeing any double-wrapped packages stored 

there. 

We asked Gonzales whether he believed it was appropriate to store 

TS/SCI materials in a safe in which staff without the requisite clearances could 

access them. Gonzales stated that he never gave “conscious consideration” to 

the fact that people who were not read in to certain programs would have 

access to documents related to those programs. He emphasized that his 

assistants were “trusted people” who, with the exception of one of the personal 

assistants, had worked for him at the White House. Further, Gonzales said he 

did not equate access to the safe with access to the notes because the notes 

were double-wrapped. He also said he doubted his assistants would open and 

read the contents of an envelope marked “AG – EYES ONLY.” 

Gonzales also told us that while he had no specific policy prohibiting his 

staff from opening the safe in his absence, his “expectation” was that no one 

would open the safe while he was not there. Gonzales said that his staff had 

no cause to open the safe without him asking them to. 

However, Gonzales’s special assistant from mid-2005 through August 

2007 told us about one instance in late 2006 when she and the personal 

assistant were asked by the former Deputy Chief of Staff to conduct a search of 

OAG documents pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. She 

stated that she and the personal assistant were instructed to search the safe 

“document by document,” including any classified materials, and that they 

“looked through every single thing in the safe.” The special assistant stated 

she was not sure Gonzales knew about the search and thought he may have 

been out of town. The personal assistant told us that he did not pay much 

16

16
attention to the documents in the safe and did not recall accessing the safe 

other than in connection with requests from Gonzales.20

Gonzales said that he had no recollection of OAG staff ever searching the 

OAG safe in response to a FOIA request, nor of being told that such a search 

had ever been conducted during his absence. 

2. Gonzales’s statements to White House attorneys and 

Justice Department officials about the notes 

Gonzales told us that he retrieved the handwritten notes about the NSA 

surveillance program from the safe outside his office in either late May or June 

2007, after former Deputy Attorney General Comey testified before the Senate 

Judiciary Committee on May 15, 2007. In his testimony, Comey discussed the 

events surrounding a March 10, 2004, visit by Gonzales and White House 

Chief of Staff Andrew Card to the George Washington University Hospital to see 

Attorney General Ashcroft about Comey’s decision not to certify the NSA 

surveillance program. Gonzales told the OIG that after Comey testified, 

Gonzales informed White House Counsel Fred Fielding that he had notes 

memorializing his recollections of the March 10, 2004, meeting with 

congressional leadership that preceded the hospital visit that day. Gonzales 

told us he gave a copy of his notes to Fielding sometime after Comey’s 

testimony. 

Fielding told the OIG that Gonzales had informed him sometime after 

Comey testified that Gonzales had some notes concerning the March 10, 2004, 

meeting, but that Gonzales “wasn’t sure where they were.” Fielding added that 

Gonzales said he was not sure if he had left the notes at the White House or 

had taken them with him when he left the White House to become the Attorney 

General. Fielding stated that Gonzales later told him he had found the notes 

and described for Fielding what the notes said. 

Gonzales provided the OIG with a similar account of his discussions with 

Fielding concerning the whereabouts of the notes. Gonzales stated that after 

he spoke with Fielding about the notes, Gonzales recalled “being a little 

confused about where the notes were.” He said he may have told Fielding that 

the notes might have been at home. Gonzales stated that he realized a week or 

so later that the notes might be in the OAG safe by his office at the Justice 

 20 Because neither of the assistants who conducted the FOIA review was read in to the 

NSA surveillance program or the detainee interrogation program, we could not show them any 

of the documents about the programs or ask descriptive questions about the documents to 

ascertain whether they recalled seeing any of the documents during the FOIA review. 

17

17
Department. Gonzales stated that he had his assistant open the safe for him, 

and that he found the notes, double- wrapped, inside the safe.21

Fielding stated that he received a copy of Gonzales’s notes, although he 

could not recall when. Fielding recalled that the notes were wrapped in one, 

and possibly two, manila envelopes. The envelope (or envelopes) contained 

only the copy of Gonzales’s handwritten notes, and no other documents. 

Gonzales told us that he personally brought the notes, double-wrapped, 

to the White House and reviewed them with Fielding. Gonzales stated that 

after meeting with Fielding he returned the notes to the OAG safe. 

Gonzales told us he also used the notes in connection with his 

preparation to testify before a congressional committee in July 2007. 

According to Steven Bradbury, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for 

the Office of Legal Counsel, Gonzales produced the notes to Bradbury and 

other Department officials on July 19, 2007, as they helped prepare Gonzales 

for his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 24, 2007.22 

Gonzales stated that he recalled using the notes to prepare for a closed hearing 

before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence earlier that 

month. Gonzales stated that he did not recall whether he used the notes in 

connection with his preparation for one or both of the July 2007 hearings; 

however, he stated that he discussed the notes with others only in the Justice 

Command Center.23 

Bradbury told the OIG that Gonzales informed him the notes “had not 

always been kept in a safe.” Gonzales told us he did not recall making this or 

any other statements to Bradbury concerning his handling or storage of the 

notes. Gonzales also told us that while he did not recall bringing the notes 

either to his residence or from his residence to his office, he was certain that he 

had retrieved them from the safe by his office when he provided them to 

Bradbury. 

 21 We asked Gonzales whether his use of the term “wrapped” meant that the envelopes 

were sealed, or merely meant that one envelope was enclosed in another. Gonzales stated that 

he did not recall whether his general practice was to seal the envelopes after each time he 

removed and returned the notes to the envelopes. 

22 Bradbury, who had been read in to the NSA surveillance program in February 2005, 

stated to us it was evident to him when he saw them that the notes contained classified 

information.

23 We also asked Gonzales whether he used the notes to prepare for testimony before 

the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 6, 2006. That testimony in part concerned the 

NSA surveillance program. Gonzales stated that he had no specific recollection of using the 

notes to prepare for this hearing, but stated that he may have accessed them for this purpose. 

18

18
The OIG also interviewed two attorneys from the White House Counsel’s 

Office about the notes. The two attorneys told us that they reviewed the notes 

on July 24, 2007, immediately after several current and former congressional 

leaders publicly disputed the accuracy of Gonzales’s testimony before the 

Senate Judiciary Committee earlier that day regarding their reactions to the 

March 10, 2004, White House meeting. 

The White House Counsel’s Office attorneys, both of whom had been read 

in to the NSA surveillance program, told us that when they reviewed the notes 

they realized that the notes might contain classified information. The two 

attorneys said that they and White House Counsel Fielding met with Gonzales 

on July 25, 2007, to discuss his handling of the notes. The meeting lasted 

approximately 15 minutes. The two White House Counsel’s Office attorneys 

made contemporaneous notes of their July 25 meeting with Gonzales, and they 

provided these notes to the OIG. 

Their contemporaneous notes of the meeting state that Gonzales told the 

White House Counsel’s Office attorneys that he had stored the notes in a safe 

in his office while White House Counsel, and had taken the notes with him 

when he left the White House for the Department of Justice. According to the 

notes, Gonzales said he had taken no other documents from the White House. 

The attorneys’ notes also state that Gonzales told them that at the Department 

he stored the notes in a safe “just outside his office.” He said that his 

immediate assistant had access to the safe, and was not sure if his personal 

assistant also had access. According to the attorneys’ notes, Gonzales told 

them he did not know if his office was a SCIF, but thought it was. 

The White House attorneys’ notes further state: “AG has taken them out 

of safe; he thinks he may have taken them home to look at and probably kept 

in safe at home”. The attorneys’ notes also state that Gonzales described how 

he had wrapped the notes in three layers of envelopes and that “other materials 

related to program (maybe DOJ materials)” were included in the outermost 

envelope. According to the White House attorneys’ notes, Gonzales told them 

there were no copies of the handwritten notes other than the one he had given 

to Fielding.24 Lastly, the White House attorneys’ notes state that Gonzales gave 

his original notes to Bradbury after Bradbury told him that the White House 

Counsel’s Office would be calling Bradbury about them, and because the Office 

of Legal Counsel already had in its possession many documents related to the 

NSA surveillance program. 

 24 During the OIG’s interview of Gonzales, we also learned that the Department 

photocopying machine that Gonzales had used to reproduce his notes for Fielding was not 

certified for copying TS/SCI materials. The OIG brought this matter to the attention of the 

Department’s Security and Emergency Planning Staff Director so that appropriate action could 

be taken to “clear” the photocopier. 

19

19
After the July 25 meeting with Gonzales, the White House Counsel’s 

Office attorneys decided to have Gonzales’s notes reviewed by the NSA for an 

official determination of whether the notes contained classified information. 

Two NSA officials reviewed the notes on July 26, 2007, and determined that 3 

of 21 paragraphs in the notes contained TS/SCI information about the NSA 

surveillance program, 1 paragraph contained TS/SCI information about signals 

intelligence, and the remaining paragraphs were unclassified. The NSA officials 

told the OIG that the three paragraphs about the NSA surveillance program 

were TS/SCI based on references to operational aspects of the program, as well 

as the use of the codeword for the program in conjunction with these 

operational aspects. The NSA official responsible for classifying the notes told 

the OIG that one aspect of the program explicitly referred to twice in the notes 

was “zealously protected” by the NSA and that designating these references 

TS/SCI was “not a close call.”25

The OIG showed Gonzales a copy of the White House Counsel’s Office 

attorneys’ notes of the July 25, 2007, meeting. Gonzales told us he did not 

recall telling the attorneys that he may have taken the notes home to look at 

and had probably kept them in a safe there, but he said the statement was 

consistent with his belief that if he had taken the notes home he would have 

kept them in a safe. 

Gonzales stated that he had no specific recollection of bringing the notes 

to his residence at any point, and said that he had no reason to bring the notes 

to his residence to review them. Gonzales added that he would have had no 

reason to look at the notes until he prepared to testify before the Senate 

Judiciary Committee in February 2006.26 

Gonzales also said the White House Counsel’s Office attorneys’ 

characterization in their notes of how Gonzales described triple-wrapping the 

handwritten notes along with other program-related documents was not 

consistent with his recollection. Gonzales told us he double-wrapped the 

notes, and no other materials were included in the package when he gave it to 

Bradbury. 

3. Storage of other TS/SCI documents 

On August 27, 2007, Gonzales announced that he was resigning as 

Attorney General, effective September 17. Bradbury told the OIG that on 

September 14, 2007, Gonzales gave Bradbury two additional envelopes with 

 25 The other classified information included in the notes that was deemed classified by 

the NSA cannot be described in this unclassified report. 

26 As noted, Gonzales did not specifically recall reviewing the notes for the February 

2006 hearing, but did recall using the notes to prepare for a hearing in July 2007. 

20

20
documents to retain in the Office of Legal Counsel. Gonzales told us he 

acquired these documents at different times during his tenure as Attorney 

General and had stored them in the OAG safe along with the handwritten notes 

relating to the NSA surveillance program. Gonzales stated that he did not 

recall whether the documents had cover sheets or how the documents had 

been wrapped or marked. Bradbury told us he maintained the documents in 

the same condition as he had received them from Gonzales. 

The OIG reviewed these additional documents. The two envelopes 

contained a total of 17 separate documents. The envelope containing 

documents related to the NSA surveillance program bore the handwritten 

markings, “TOP SECRET – EYES ONLY – ARG” followed by an abbreviation for 

the SCI codeword for the program. The envelope containing the documents 

relating to a detainee interrogation program bore classification markings 

related to that program. Each document inside the envelopes had a cover 

sheet and header-footer markings indicating the document was TS/SCI. The 

documents related to the NSA surveillance program discussed in Gonzales’s 

handwritten notes as well as to a detainee interrogation program. The 

documents included Office of Legal Counsel opinions that discuss the legal 

bases for various aspects of the compartmented programs, memoranda 

summarizing the operational details of the programs, correspondence from 

congressional Intelligence Committee leaders to Director of Central Intelligence 

Hayden about one of the TS/SCI programs, a “talking points” memorandum 

about one of the compartmented programs, and a draft legal declaration of a 

high-ranking intelligence agency official relating to the NSA surveillance 

program. 

As noted above, the NSA told the OIG that none of the special and 

personal assistants and other personnel in the OAG with access to the safe was 

read in to the NSA surveillance program. In addition, a SEPS official told the 

OIG that only one of Gonzales’s assistants, and neither of the SPMs, had been 

read in to the other compartmented TS/SCI program, a detainee interrogation 

program, which was discussed in the documents described above. 

IV. OIG ANALYSIS 

In this section we present our analysis of Gonzales’s handling of the 

handwritten notes and the 17 other TS/SCI documents discussed above. 

We concluded that Gonzales mishandled these classified documents in 

various ways. Notwithstanding his vague recollections, the evidence showed 

that Gonzales took the handwritten notes about the NSA program, which 

contained TS/SCI information, to his Vienna residence. The evidence also 

showed that although Gonzales had a safe at this residence, he did not use it, 

and appears not to have known the combination to the safe at that time. In 

21

21
addition, his residence was not furnished with a SCIF, the only proper facility 

for storage of such SCI material. Moreover, the evidence showed that when 

Gonzales brought the notes back to the Department, he kept them, as well as 

other TS/SCI documents, in a safe outside his office. This safe was not located 

in a SCIF, and therefore it was not an authorized location for the storage of 

these TS/SCI documents. The OIG determined that several individuals without 

the necessary clearances had regular access to this safe and these documents. 

We concluded that Gonzales’s handling of these documents violated 

basic Department regulations and procedures governing the proper handling of 

such classified materials. 

A. Gonzales Took the Classified Notes to His Residence 

First, we concluded that the evidence showed that Gonzales knew or 

should have known that his notes of the meeting with the congressional 

leaders about the NSA surveillance program were classified. In his OIG 

interview, Gonzales said that he was unaware of the classification level and 

compartmented nature of the NSA program he referenced in the notes. 

Gonzales also stated he did not recall thinking that the notes themselves were 

classified. Rather, Gonzales stated that he regarded the notes as “sensitive” 

because the President asked him to draft them, and thus he “treated [the 

notes] as classified.” 

However, it is clear that the notes contained classified information. 

Gonzales acknowledged that he created the notes to memorialize an official 

briefing of congressional leaders concerning a sensitive NSA surveillance 

program that Gonzales himself described as being of the highest level of 

secrecy. While he told us that his notes were meant to capture the 

congressional leaders’ reactions to the briefing, and not operational details of 

the program, Gonzales in fact recorded in his notes specific operational terms 

associated with the program, as well as the codeword used to identify the 

program. 

Both the Office of Legal Counsel official and the attorneys from the White 

House Counsel’s Office who were read in to the NSA surveillance program and 

had considered the notes prior to the NSA conducting its classification review 

told us that the notes appeared classified to them. In addition, the NSA official 

who reviewed the notes for classification told us that one of these operational 

terms was “zealously protected” by the NSA and that designating the references 

to the term in the notes as TS/SCI was “not a close call.” 

Moreover, by the time Gonzales created the notes in March 2004, he had 

reviewed other documents discussing operational details of the NSA 

surveillance program. These other documents, which we cannot describe in 

this unclassified report, were clearly marked as TS with SCI designations. His 

22

22
familiarity with these documents should have put him on notice that his 

handwritten notes, which referred to some of the same operational aspects of 

the surveillance program, had to be handled in accordance with TS/SCI 

protocols. In fact, the materials used during the March 10, 2004, briefing of 

the congressional leaders – the very briefing Gonzales summarized in his notes 

– bore TS markings with SCI designations. 

Further, Gonzales’s own actions indicated that he viewed the notes as 

classified. Gonzales told us he double-wrapped the notes and marked them as 

“AG – EYES ONLY – TOP SECRET.” While Gonzales told us that because he 

regarded the notes as “sensitive” he treated them as classified, he wrote “Top 

Secret” on the envelope containing the notes. We believe that writing “Top 

Secret” on the envelope suggests that he knew the notes were in fact classified, 

not simply that the notes were sensitive. 

The evidence further showed that Gonzales took these notes to his home 

for some period of time after he became the Attorney General. Gonzales 

brought the notes with him from the White House to the Department of Justice 

on the evening of February 3, 2005, just after he had been sworn in as 

Attorney General. Gonzales told us he did not recall whether he took the notes 

home with him that evening. However, he also stated that he did not recall 

accessing the safe just outside his office, receiving the combination to this safe, 

or giving the notes to anyone to store while at the Department that evening. In 

addition, he said that if he did not have the ability to store the notes in the safe 

outside his OAG office that evening, he would have taken the notes home “of 

necessity.” He also said that if he brought the notes home with him, he would 

have brought them back to the Department the next day and had them stored 

in the safe outside his office. However, he said he had no specific recollection 

of doing any of this. 

When we asked him why on that first evening he did not leave the notes 

in the Justice Command Center, a facility available to him for the storage of 

TS/SCI materials, he said he did not recall thinking about it, and that he might 

not have “felt comfortable” leaving the notes there at that time. 

The evidence established that Gonzales in fact did not have access to the 

OAG safe the evening he was sworn in as Attorney General and took the notes 

home. The OAG SPM told us she was present that evening and was the only 

OAG staff person who would have had the combination to the safe in the 

Attorney General’s suite. She stated that she never gave Gonzales the 

combination to the safe and that she did not open that safe or any other 

storage facilities for him that evening. None of Gonzales’s aides present with 

him that evening said they stored the notes for him that evening or had the 

combination to the safe that evening. We therefore concluded that Gonzales 

took the notes home with him on the evening of February 3, 2005. 

23

23
The evidence further indicated that Gonzales kept the notes in a 

briefcase at his residence that evening. Gonzales stated that if he took the 

notes home on February 3, 2005, he would have left the notes in his briefcase 

in his office at his residence, adding that he did not know if he had a safe in his 

residence at this time.27 As discussed above, although Gonzales had a safe in 

his residence on February 3, 2005, the evidence showed that he did not use the 

safe to store the notes. Gonzales told the OIG that he had no specific 

recollection of ever using the safe in his residence. In addition, a DOJ Program 

Manager responsible for coordinating the installation of a DOJ safe in 

Gonzales’s residence after Gonzales became the Attorney General told us that 

in early March 2005 Gonzales did not know the combination to the safe. 

Further, the evidence showed that because later efforts to determine the 

combination to the safe were unsuccessful, Gonzales was given a new safe 

when he moved to a new residence several months later. We asked Gonzales 

whether these facts concerning the safe in his Vienna residence changed his 

recollection of how he handled the notes on February 3, 2005. He said they did 

not. 

Moreover, Gonzales’s statements to Office of Legal Counsel official 

Bradbury and to the White House Counsel attorneys also indicate that he may 

not always have maintained the notes in a safe and may have taken the notes 

to his residence. According to Bradbury, when Gonzales first told Bradbury 

about the notes in 2007 Gonzales stated that the notes “had not always been 

kept in a safe.” Gonzales said he did not recall making this statement to 

Bradbury. 

According to contemporaneous notes of the White House Counsel 

attorneys who interviewed Gonzales about his handling of the notes, Gonzales 

told them that he “has taken them out of safe; he thinks he may have taken 

them home to look at and probably kept in safe at home”. When we asked him 

about this statement, Gonzales told us he did not recall telling the attorneys 

this, but he also said the statement was consistent with his belief that if he had 

taken the notes home he would have kept them in a safe.28 

The OIG was unable to determine how long Gonzales kept the notes at 

his residence. Gonzales told us he had no specific recollection of bringing the 

notes from his residence to the Department, but said he would have returned 

them to the Department the following day. However, the Security Programs 

Manager told us that she was the only person in the OAG who knew the 

 27 Gonzales told us that his briefcase had a lock, but that he did not always use it. 

28 The White House Counsel’s Office attorneys’ notes also suggest that Gonzales may 

have taken the notes home again at some point after the night of February 3, 2005. However, 

we found insufficient evidence to conclude that Gonzales brought the notes to his residence at 

any time other than on the evening of February 3, 2005. 

24

24
combination to the safe outside Gonzales’s office for some period of time, 

although she was unable to recall how long this remained the case. She stated 

that she did not open the safe for Gonzales on his first evening as Attorney 

General or at any other time. She told us that at some indeterminate point 

after Gonzales’s arrival as Attorney General, others in the OAG obtained access 

to the safe and could have stored materials there for him. Gonzales’s first 

special assistant upon his becoming the Attorney General told us she received 

the combination from the SPM within the first couple of days of Gonzales’s 

arrival at the Department, and that she may have given the combination to 

Gonzales thereafter. Gonzales added little to the OIG’s ability to assess the 

duration of the violation, stating only that if he had taken the notes home, he 

would have brought them to the Department the next day, although he did not 

recall doing so. 

In sum, we concluded that on February 3, 2005, when he was sworn in 

as Attorney General, Gonzales took classified notes about the NSA surveillance 

program from the White House to the Department of Justice and then to his 

residence, where he kept them for an indeterminate period of time and stored 

them there in his briefcase. We further concluded that although Gonzales had 

a safe in his residence, he did not store the notes in it, and that in any event a 

SCIF, the only proper storage facility for such TS/SCI materials, was never 

installed there. 

B. Storing the Notes and Other TS/SCI Materials Outside of a 

SCIF 

We also determined that when Gonzales brought the notes back to the 

Department, he improperly stored them in a safe just outside his office that 

was not suitable for the storage of these TS/SCI notes. In addition, we 

determined that Gonzales inappropriately kept at least 17 additional TS/SCI 

documents in this safe. These 17 documents were accessible to other 

individuals who had access to the safe but who did not have the necessary 

clearance to view the documents. These documents described legal and 

operational aspects of the NSA surveillance program and a detainee 

interrogation program, and were clearly marked as TS/SCI on cover sheets and 

by header-footer markings. 

Gonzales told us he believed the Attorney General’s suite, where the safe 

was located, was a “very secure area” with “very limited access.” He stated he 

believed that the safe was an appropriate place to store the notes and the other 

documents, and that no one had told him otherwise. However, Gonzales had 

been briefed on the proper handling of SCI materials, including the 

requirement that SCI materials be stored in a SCIF. Gonzales told us he did 

25

25
not ask anyone whether the safe satisfied this requirement, nor did he ever ask 

whether the OAG had a SCIF.29 

By storing the notes and the other TS/SCI documents in the safe outside 

his office instead of in a SCIF, Gonzales also made them accessible to 

individuals not cleared into the two compartmented programs. We found that 

at least five members of the OAG staff – none of whom were cleared into the 

NSA surveillance program – had access to the OAG safe, and had access to 

some or all the NSA surveillance program documents. Further, four of those 

OAG staff members had not been read in to the detainee interrogation program 

that was the subject of some of the other documents stored in the safe. 

Gonzales told us that he never gave “conscious consideration” to the fact 

that people who were not read in to certain programs would have access to 

documents in the safe by his office related to those programs. He stated that 

his assistants were “trusted people,” and that he did not equate access to the 

safe with access to his notes about the NSA program because the notes were 

double-wrapped. He also said he doubted his assistants would open and read 

the contents of an envelope marked “AG – EYES ONLY” or with similar 

restrictive language. However, the fact remains that several people on 

Gonzales’s staff had access to the materials stored in the safe yet lacked 

clearances for the NSA surveillance and detainee interrogation programs. 

Moreover, we learned that two of Gonzales’s assistants may have gone through 

all documents stored in the OAG safe in response to a FOIA request.30 

C. Justice Department Security Regulations 

Gonzales’s handling of the notes and the other classified documents 

violated basic Department regulations and procedures governing the proper 

handling of such classified materials. 

First, as noted above, in addition to his White House security briefing, 

Gonzales received a briefing on the proper handling of SCI materials when he 

became the Attorney General. Despite having transported the classified notes 

about the NSA surveillance program from the White House to the Department 

 29 The SPM for the OAG stated that she did not brief Gonzales on the handling of 

classified documents within the OAG while he was the Attorney General. While the SPM has 

responsibilities that are designed to prevent the mishandling of classified documents by 

Department employees, the burden ultimately rests with the employee to ensure that classified 

material is properly handled. 

30 As noted above, because neither of the assistants who conducted the FOIA review 

was read in to the NSA surveillance program or the detainee interrogation program, we could 

not show them any of the documents about the programs or ask descriptive questions about 

the documents to ascertain whether they recalled seeing any of the documents during the FOIA 

review. 

26

26
on the same day of the briefing, he did not ask about how these notes could be 

appropriately stored. Instead, the evidence indicates that he took them home 

and stored them in his briefcase before bringing them back to the Department 

at some point and putting them in a safe outside his office without inquiring 

whether the notes could be stored in that safe. 

All Department employees are subject to the provisions of 28 C.F.R. Part 

17, which are designed to ensure that National Security Information within the 

Department is properly classified and handled. Under the authority of 

Executive Order 12958, as amended, and 28 C.F.R. Part 17, the Department 

also has promulgated a Security Program Operating Manual (Manual). The 

Manual establishes security policies and operational procedures within the 

Department for the protection of National Security Information, including the 

substantive requirements for the handling of SCI. As a Department employee, 

Gonzales was subject to the provisions of the Manual. Manual at 1-102. 

The procedures established in the Manual, and reinforced in security 

briefings, provide that classified material must be either “under the personal 

control of an authorized or appropriately cleared person” or “guarded or stored 

in a locked security container,” typically a General Services Administrationapproved safe. However, regarding the handling of TS/SCI material, the 

Manual provides that “SCI information may only be . . . stored within a 

Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF).” Further, “SCI material 

must not be sent to a building that does not have a SCIF or to someone who 

does not have access to a SCIF.” As discussed above, the Manual’s 

requirement that SCI material be stored in a SCIF was covered in the SCI 

briefing Gonzales received the day he became the Attorney General. 

We found that Gonzales violated these provisions by taking the notes 

home and then later storing these notes, as well as other SCI documents, in a 

safe not authorized to hold such materials. In these actions, he failed to 

adhere to fundamental procedures for storing and handling TS/SCI materials. 

He took these actions despite being briefed on the proper handling of SCI, 

including the requirement that such material must be stored in a SCIF, and 

being advised that the Justice Command Center was available to store SCI 

materials.31

 

(Cont’d.) 

31 As noted above, although Gonzales stated that he was not aware his handwritten 

notes were classified, we found evidence that he knew or should have known that they were 

classified. However, his awareness of the document’s classification level is not relevant to 

establishing whether he violated Department requirements for the proper handling of classified 

information. Under the Manual, the state of mind of an employee who violates a security 

requirement is a potential factor for other purposes, such as determining the applicable 

reporting procedures and the imposition of sanctions. See e.g., Manual at 1-201, 1-302h; 1-

303c(6). According to the Director of SEPS, infractions short of a criminal violation could 

27

27
As noted above, Gonzales’s conduct also allowed the documents to be 

accessible to persons on his staff who were not authorized to see them. While 

Gonzales told us he trusted his staff not to review the SCI documents in the 

safe, his trust in staff members and his expectation about how they would 

conduct themselves was not a substitute for his compliance with basic SCI 

handling requirements. For example, there is evidence that two of Gonzales’s 

assistants had to review all of the documents in the safe in response to a FOIA 

request. 

The Federal Criminal Code contains statutes relating to the improper 

handling of classified documents.32 In light of Gonzales’s handling of these 

documents, and in particular the handwritten notes which we found he 

improperly brought to his residence, we provided our report to the 

Department’s National Security Division for its review. After reviewing the 

matter, the National Security Division declined prosecution. 

We have also provided our report to the Department’s Security and 

Emergency Planning Staff and to the NSA for their review and any actions 

related to our findings that these entities consider appropriate. 

V. CONCLUSION 

In sum, our investigation found that Gonzales mishandled classified 

materials while serving as Attorney General. The evidence shows that he took 

TS/SCI notes about the NSA surveillance program to his residence and 

improperly stored them in a briefcase there for an indeterminate period of time. 

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. 

 

subject the employee to a range of disciplinary actions – from security awareness training reeducation to revocation of the employee’s security clearance – depending on the circumstances. 

32 For example, 18 U.S.C. § 1924 provides in relevant part: 

Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material

(a) Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United 

States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes 

possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the 

United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without 

authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an 

unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more 

than one year, or both. 

28

28
Like all other Department employees, Gonzales was responsible for 

safeguarding classified materials, familiarizing himself with the facilities 

available to him in the OAG for storing these materials, and observing the rules 

and procedures for the proper handling of classified documents. Our 

investigation found that Gonzales did not fulfill these obligations and instead 

mishandled highly classified documents about the NSA surveillance program 

and a detainee interrogation program. 

29

29