Alberto Gonzales should not have taken his work home with him. At least not the way he did it.
That was the conclusion of a Justice Department report released yesterday that the former attorney general broke security protocols during his tenure by taking sensitive documents about the government’s national security program home in an unlocked suitcase, and not keeping them locked in a safe once at his home.
Gonzales told investigators that he didn’t recall taking the documents – documents regarding the government’s secret wiretapping program which were classified as one level higher than top secret – to his home, and didn’t recall that they were classified. As to why he did not use the safe in his Northern Virginia home, the former attorney general testified that he “could not remember the combination.”
Justice officials investigated the security breach, but declined to bring charges against Gonzales.
The revelation is the latest in a series of blows to the former Justice chief, who resigned last year amid allegations about his role in the firings of nine U.S. attorneys, and amid questions over his role in persuading his predecessor, John Ashcroft, to authorize the wiretapping program while Ashcroft was in a hospital intensive care unit.
