Sen. Franken and the Fourth Amendment

The Washington Independent is reporting that Senator Al Franken read the text of the Fourth Amendment to Assistant Attorney General (National Security Division) David Kris.   Apparently, at some point of the proceedings, Mr. Kris muttered that the line of questioning was “surreal.”

Gonzales Follow-Up

The official report from Inspector General Fine has been posted to the Office of the Inspector General’s Website (PDF).  It contains little nuggets like:

During the OIG’s intial 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 intial 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.  We 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.  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.  (Page 12) 

…

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.” (Page 19)

In January of 2005, after I had sent an email to one of my senators, John Cornyn, asking him not to vote for Gonzales to be Attorney General, he responded by telling me that Mr. Gonzales “combines stellar legal credentials with an inspiring American success story,” and that he “strongly support[ed] his nomination to America’s chief law enforcement post.”  More than two years later, when Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the US Attorney foo-frah, Cornyn had changed his tune, albeit, only a little:  ”General Gonzales, you and I have known each other a long time, and I believe that you are a good and decent man. But I have to tell you that the way that this investigation has been handled is just been — been really deplorable.”

“Mishandling” Classified Information

According to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and others, former (thankfully) Attorney General Alberto Gonzales “kept classified material at his home and in an office safe.”  Inspector General Glenn A. Fine (who typically does a pretty “fine” (forgive me!) job investigating the messes created under Ashcroft and Gonzales) apparently referred the matter to the “Justice Department’s national security division for possible criminal action, but officials there declined to prosecute Mr. Gonzales.”  Not too surprising, that.

You might recall that Sandy Berger, former National Security Adviser to President Clinton, recently got in hot water for taking materials from the National Archives, to the tune of $50,000.00 (Of course, he was naff enough to also destroy some of them.)  And a few years ago, Larry Franklin pleaded guilty to giving classified date to a foreign official.

“Mishandling” classified information, is actually a pretty severe federal crime, punishable by up to ten years imprisonment.  The statute in play would be 18 U.S.C. § 793(f), which states:

(f) Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense,

(1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or

(2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.