T1a B44 Fbi Correspondence Fdr- Entire Contents- Fbi Letters Re Access To Personnel- Withdrawal Notice Re Penttbom

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FBI FACSIMILE COVER SHEET

CLASSIFICATION

PRECEDENCE

Time Transmitted: Sender's Initials: Number of Pages: (including cover sheet)

D Top Secret D Secret D Confidential D Sensitive xQTJnclassified

D Immediate Q Priority *Q"Routine

Date:

To:

Name of Office . Facsimile Number:

^ «Uf -

Attn: Room

Telephone

From: Name of Office Subject:

Special Handling Instructions:

Originator's Name:

Telephone:

Originator's Facsimile Number: Approved: ___^____^^__ Brief Description of Communication Faxed;

WARNING Information attacked to the cover sheet is U.S. Government Property. If you are not the intended recipient of this information, disclosure, reproduction, distribution, or use of this information is prohibited (18.USC, § 641). Please notify the originator or the local FBI Office immediately to arrange for proper disposition.

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U.d. Department ui justice

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Federal Bureau of Investigation

Office of the General Counsel

Washington. D.C 20S3S

September 5,2003 Daniel Marcus, General Counsel National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States Suite 300 2100 K Street, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20036 RE: Commission's Request for Documents Dear Mr. Marcus: I am responding to the letter from the Chair and Vice Chair of the Commission to the FBI Director and also the follow up memorandum you sent me on August 26,2003. Based on our review of documents and the Commission's requests to the FBI to date, we are not currently aware of any responsive documents as to which we would not grant access as defined in the September 5,2003 letter from Dan Levin to Phil Zelikow. Because of the unique nature of the Commission's work, and in a spirit of accommodation, our production has included extraordinary access to extremely sensitive documents. We are continuing to review documents (and you are continuing to request them) and if there are any documents for which we would seek some other accommodation, we would of course discuss that with you immediately. The FBI has worked hard over the last two months to provide the Commission with the information it needs and has made some rather extraordinary efforts to achieve that goal. We have given the Commission access to over 1.6 million pages of documents. To address your desire to have quick search capability through these materials, the vast majority of these documents are available on two computer workstations at FBIHQ which we have trained your staff to use. The workstations are equipped with software which enables a variety of search techniques. In addition, the FBI has provided extensive access to its employees. To date, the FBI has provided the Commission with 16 briefings from senior FBI officials, supervisors and frontline agents working on the PENTTBOM investigation and all other aspects of our counterterrorism program. Many of these briefings have lasted several hours. Director Mueller also made himself available to the Commission to review the changes he has made at the FBI over his two-year tenure and his vision for the future.

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With substantial assistance from the FBI, the Commission has also visited two field offices: our Washington Field (WFO) and New York City offices (NYO). At WFO, we facilitated the visit of your staff, which, over the course of being on site for three weeks, conducted approximately 50 interviews of FBI employees or members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) as well as taking tours of the WFO facilities. Over the last two weeks, your staff has conducted a similar visit to our NYO where it has completed approximately 38 interviews and plans to finish its work the week of September 15th with an additional seven interviews. Many of the interviews have lasted for several hours. The NYO visit also included an extensive briefing on the management of the crime scene in New York and tours of Ground Zero and our New York Command Post. In both WFO and New York, we have not refused a single interview request. Moreover, to address your staffs stated desire to have a streamlined, informal method of answering questions, we have offered to make our PENTTBOM team available for a one or two day session to go through the timeline of events with your staff and provide answers to their questions. In addition, we have offered to establish a weekly meeting with a representative of the PENTTBOM team and members of your staff to provide an ongoing vehicle for answering questions and providing information. We believe this represents extraordinary access to the case agents who are still fully occupied with then- investigative work and demonstrates our sincere desire to be as cooperative with the Commission as possible. With respect to the specific documents identified in your August 26,2003 memorandum: 1. As to Document Request 1, items 8(e) and 8(f) — we have produced the responsive documents for the five field offices that you have indicated you would like to visit (Washington Field, New York, Phoenix, Miami and San Diego). As you are aware, the responsive documents are quite numerous. To respond to other document requests which you have indicated are of higher priority, we have not completed production of responsive documents for the remaining five offices on your list which you have not indicated a desire to visit at this time. That production will continue on a rolling basis consistent with priorities you set in light of new document requests that you continue to propound to the FBI. 2. As to Document Request 5, items 2,4,5,7,8,9, and 12 - our initial production of documents responsive to these requests is substantially complete. We continue to work with your staff regarding additional documents responsive to item 9 in particular. As we have discussed in recent meetings, we are pleased to continue working with them in a cooperative manner to identify additional helpful material. 3. As to Document Request 9, items 1,2,3, and 4 -- our production with respect to these items is mostly complete. We produced a number of documents responsive to items 1, 3 and 4. Despite a thorough search process and discussions with relevant current and former officials, we have not located any materials responsive to item #2, and believe we do not possess such documents. We are working with your staff to have them review a sample of former

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Director Freeh's calendars to determine if you are interested in those materials. We also anticipate reviewing the remaining few archived materials as they become available. We expect to complete that process by September 30. The FBI is committed to cooperating with the Commission as it continues its important work. Please do not hesitate to call me to discuss any concerns you may have. Sincerely,

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U.S. Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation

Office of the General Counsel

Washington, D.C. 20535

July 25, 2003 Daniel Marcus, General Counsel National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States Suite 300 2100KStreet,N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036 RE: Commission's Requests for Documents Dear Mr. Marcus: Please be advised that the FBI has established two workstations equipped with Concordance software at FBIHQ for immediate use by the Commission. The stations have been loaded with approximately 162,000 FBI 302's from the PENTTBOM file as well as approximately 2,000 pages of FBI lab reports. While the vast majority of the materials have not been redacted, approximately 12,818 FBI 302's have been redacted to protect sources and methods. These documents were also produced to the Moussaouj defense in redacted format Should you have any specific concerns regarding individual redactions taken, we would be happy to discuss them. Of course, all of this material is Moussaoui-related and is covered by the terms of the non-disclosure agreement executed between the Commission and the Department of Justice. The material is electronically searchable. Members and staff of the Commission are free to use the workstations to review and search the materials as they wish. We would be happy to provide your staff training on how to use the Concordance software. To this end, we would propose a 1 hour training session for all interested Commission personnel the week of July 28th . Please contact me to make these arrangements. If members or staff wish to have paper copies of any of the imaged documents, we would be pleased to provide copies for paper production to the Commission after proper batesstamping to ensure an accurate record of what was produced. We believe the workstations will provide the Commission with the ability and opportunity to conduct its own searches of substantial amounts of PENTTBOM material. We remain willing to discuss with you methods to conduct additional searches of relevant materials on behalf of the Commission. -Sincerely,

Robert S. Sinton Assistant General Counsel

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U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division

Washington. D.C. 20530

July 11, 2003 Philip Zelikow Executive Director

Daniel Marcus General Counsel 301 7th Street SW, Room 5125 Washington, D.C. 20407 Gentlemen: This sets forth our agreement with the Commission concerning the treatment of documents, information and witnesses relating to the investigation and prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui, who is presently charged in federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia with participating in the conspiracies that resulted in the attacks of September 11, 2001 (docket number Ol-Cr.-455-A). This agreement does not pertain to documents created or obtained during the Justice Department's "PENTTBOM" investigation that the Department determines are unrelated to the investigation and prosecution of Mr. Moussaoui. Please confirm the Commission's agreement by signing in the space provided at the end of this letter and returning it to me. Documents and Information With the exception of the Commission's final report, the Commission and its staff will not publicly disclose any documents or information relating to the investigation or prosecution of Mr. Moussaoui prior to the completion of his trial in the Eastern District of Virginia without the Department's prior consent. If the Moussaoui trial is not completed at the time the Commission needs to submit its final report, the Commission and the Department will consult about the Commission's plans, if any, to include Moussaoui-related information in the report and whether it is necessary or prudent for the Department and/or the Commission to seek any court ruling prior to disclosure of such information in the report. Interviews 1. The Department will provide the Commission with a list by specific category of nongovernment employees related to the Moussaoui trial as to whom it requests notification before any interviews. 2. No later than five business days before the Commission interviews any individual in one of the categories on this list, it will advise the Department of the individual's identity. If

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requested, the Commission will permit a Department lawyer to be present at the interview and will not video or audio record or otherwise verbatim transcribe the interview. We appreciate the spirit of accommodation in which you and Steve Dunne have worked to resolve this important issue. Sincerely,

On behalf of the National Commission on the Terrorist Attacks of September 11,2001,1 agree to the non-disclosure agreement set forth above.

Date Name Title

WITH DRAWAL NOTICE RG: 148 Box: 00015 Series: Copies: 2

Folder: 0044 Document: 2 Team 1A Files Pages: 4 ACCESS RESTRICTED

The item identified below has been withdrawn from this file: Folder Title: FBI PENTTBOM Summary Document Date: 09-11-2003 Document Type: Fax Special Media: From: To: Subject:

Summary of FBI's progress in the Pentagon Twin Tow ers Bombing (PENTTBOM) case

In the review of this file this item was removed because access to it is restricted. Restrictions on records in the National Archives are stated in general and specific record group restriction statements which are available for examination.

NND: 341 Withdrawn: 08-14-2008

by:

RETRIEVAL #: 341 00015 0044 2 System DocID: 3825