This is SO pathetic... the CNN apologist makes the same idiotic argument that she "didn't intend to break the law" ...since when do you have to intend to be grossly negligent? Has anyone in history EVER been intentionally grossly negligent???
Even if that were a valid argument, there's still a massive amount of laws that didn't require it to be intentional.
How did this all work out?
"While serving as attorney general, Alberto Gonzales mishandled top secret documents, risking the release of classified information about two of the Bush administration's most sensitive counterterrorism efforts - a surveillance program and detainee interrogations.
Mishandling classified materials violates Justice Department regulations and removing them from special secure facilities without proper authorization is a crime. But a report issued Tuesday by the Justice Department's inspector general says the agency decided not to press charges against Gonzales, who resigned under fire last year.
Lawyers for Gonzales acknowledge he did not store or protect the top secret documents - a set of handwritten notes about the surveillance program and 17 other papers - as he should have.
...
At issue is how, and where, Gonzales stored the documents, which are classified as sensitive compartmentalized information, or SCI.
SCI materials are among the highest and most sensitive levels of classified top secret documents and usually relate to national security cases."
DOJ: Gonzales Mishandled Top-Secret Docs
September 2, 2008, 4:12 AM
DOJ: Gonzales Mishandled Top-Secret Docs - CBS News
The damning OIG report is here:
Report - Office of the Inspector General - US Department of Justice
Give it a lil looksee. If you're pressed for time, do a Ctrl^F for
TS/SCI markings.
Have fun!
"A small snip: "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...."
He took TOP SECRET classified documents home, in an unlocked briefcase, stored them in his home, unprotected. Then later kept them in a safe hall outside his office where uncleared persons had access to him.
Intent?