Dm B7 White House 2 Of 2 Fdr- 7-28-03 Emails Re Gonzales Call Re Interviews Of Former Govt Employees And Quotations In Notes 425

Mail:: Sent Items: Re: call to Gonzales IMPORTANT

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Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 14:47:14 -0400 From: "" 4F To: "" 4P Subject: Re: call to Gonzales IMPORTANT

Phil, Dan, Steve -- Gonzales got back to Lee and Lee just called (2:20 PM) . His comments key off Dan's talking points below. Gonzales agreed to la and Ic below. He read back to Lee his agreement with the position outlined in la and Ic; his only requirement is that such agreement be put in writing. On Ib, Gonzales -did not comment, but Lee noted that this was something we had agreed to already in any case, so he said we should just include that in the written agreement as well. Gonzales then brought up the minders issue (which he did not do previously) . Gonzales accepted that they were not going to convince us on the question of minders with former government officials. He stated his revised request as follows: "If the statement of the former employee ends up in the report or as the basis for a recommendation, the White House will want to listen to the recording or review the transcript for the purpose of verifying the information." Lee told Gonzales that we would get back to him. As far as Lee is concerned, he can agree to this, but unfortunately he spoke to Tom before not after the Gonzales conversation. He said we need to close the loop with Tom, but that he was willign to agree. I asked Lee whether Gonzales also meant interview reports as well as recordings or transcripts; Lee said that sounded right to him (they want to "verify" the information, Gonzales said repeatedly), but that they had discussed recordings and transcripts, and did not use the word interview reports. We probably need to close the loop on this point. Lee urged us to wrap this up; I told him we were very much on the same time line, to conclude this before the Commission meeting.

Quoting "" : > > > > > > > > > > >

Suggested talking points (on No. 2, you can decide whether you want to raise or wait to see whether Gonzales does): 1. Re quotations in notes: a. We agree with you on two important principles: (1) we shouldn't take verbatim notes that effectively recreate a document; and (2) we should be restrained in including quotations in our notes. b. We have also agreed to language suggested by your staff that when it comes to our final report, there should be a presumption that we will not directly quote from presidential deliberative documents. And you, of course,

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Mail:: Sent Items: Re: call to Gonzales IMPORTANT

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will have an opportunity to review our draft final report for classification and executive privilege concerns. c. But our Commissioners and staff taking notes must have some leeway to include in their notes "reasonably limited" quotations from EOF documents. Those notes, of course, will not be made public or even shared generally within the staff, but some flexibility is necessary if our staff is to do its job. An arbitrary limit to no more than a sentence is, in our view, inappropriate. And we think we should both want to avoid a case-by-case priocess where we have to demonstyrate a need for including quotations in our notes. d. So we request that you consider the compromise language we have proposed to your staff. 2.

Re: interviews of former govt employees: a. On current government employees, and former employees who request that

an agency representative be present, the Commission has already made a major concession that many Commissioners were unhappy about: i.e., we have agreed that agency representatives may be present at such interviews and that, if they are recorded, we will make a copy of the recording available to the govt through Dan Levin. b. But we feel strongly that we cannot agree to record all interviews with former employees who do NOT want an agency representative present and make copies of those recordings available to the govt. We believe it would negate the former employee's decision NOT to have an agency representative

present,

were we to tell him that a recording of his interview would be given to the govt. And it might well chill or distort the interview. c. We recognize your concern about verification. If our draft report contains information from an interview with a former employee where no agency representative was present, and you raise a question about what the employee said, we will check the recording to make sure that we got it right. You have Tom's and my promise and that of our senior staff that we will make every effort to reflect fairly and accurately what all interviewees tell us.

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Mail:: INBOX: call to Gonzales

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82.24MB / 476.84MB (17.25%) Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 17:28:04-0400 From: "" 41 To: "" 4f,"" 4P,"" 4? Subject: call to Gonzales Suggested talking points (on No. 2, you can decide whether you want to raise or wait to see whether Gonzales does): 1. Re quotations in notes: a. We agree with you on two important principles: (1) we shouldn't take verbatim notes that effectively recreate a document; and (2) we should be restrained in including quotations in our notes. b. We have also agreed to language suggested by your staff that when it comes to our final report, there should be a presumption that we will not directly quote from presidential deliberative documents. And you, of course, will have an opportunity to review our draft final report for classification and executive privilege concerns. c. But our Commissioners and staff taking notes must have some leeway to include in their notes "reasonably limited" quotations from EOF documents. Those notes, of course, will not be made public or even shared generally within the staff, but some flexibility is necessary if our staff is to do its job. An arbitrary limit to no more than a sentence is, in our view, inappropriate. And we think we should both want to avoid a case-by-case priocess where we have to demonstyrate a need for including quotations in our notes. d. So we request that you consider the compromise language we have proposed to your staff. 2.

Re: interviews of former govt employees: a. On current government employees, and former employees who request that an agency representative be present, the Commission has already made a major concession that many Commissioners were unhappy about: i.e., we have agreed that agency representatives may be present at such interviews and that, if they are recorded, we will make a copy of the recording available to the govt through Dan Levin. b. But we feel strongly that we cannot agree to record all interviews with former employees who do NOT want an agency representative present and make copies of those recordings available to the govt. We believe it would negate the former employee's decision NOT to have an agency representative present, were we to tell him that a recording of his interview would be given to the govt. And it might well chill or distort the interview. c. We recognize your concern about verification. If our draft report contains information from an interview with a former employee where no agency representative was present, and you raise a question about what the employee said, we will check the recording to make sure that we got it right. You have Tom's and my promise and that of our senior staff that we will make every effort to reflect fairly and accurately what all interviewees tell us.

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