HeRoso1H4 12 January 31, 2004 MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD Subj: White House Meeting on PDB Issues ‘The meeting was held on January 29 in the office of the White House Counsel. The participants were Vice Chair Hamilton, Commissioner Gorelick, Executive Director Zelikow (preparing this MFR), Judge Gonzales, and NSC staff lawyer Bryan Cunningham. Zelikow joined the meeting about 5 or 10 minutes after it had begun. Gonzales and Cunningham were detailing some of their concems with the Review Team report. -- The itemized summaries of PDB articles in the core group repeated some of the information on sources and methods in 10 or 11 cases. ~The summary portion of the report was too detailed. The first summary section seemed OK. The next two were more difficult. Gonzales envisioned a process in which there had to be some level of trust between the Commission and its designated Review Team. In his conception, a few people would have access to everything but, as with briefings for congressional leaders, other Commission members would need to trust that the Team would convey key conclusions. Also, by giving access to the Review Team, “the Commission had had access.” Hamilton said the Review Team should prepare a “spare” description of the 24 articles in the core group. No para numbering or editorial content. Just an “accurate, spare description.” The two sides needed to try to reach an agreement. Gorelick said she and Zelikow had tried, but that they had already prepared a document that met Hamilton’s standard. Hamilton said the question should, what do commissioners need to know about the flow of information going to the presidents? Gorelick explained how the current draft attempted to do that. Later in the meeting Hamilton expressed his sympathy with the White House concer about further disseminating information about sources and methods, even in a summary that would remain highly classified. Later, Gorelick also explained her view on the issue of trust and delegation. She described the responsibility she felt to the Commission, and especially to Commission staff doing the detailed investigatory work. She said she would not have accepted the duty if she had been constrained in the way Gonzales had suggested. The participants discussed the definition of the core group. The White House appeared to believe that the Chair and Vice Chair had agreed with the White House's original definition of the parameters of the core group. Hence, when the White House thought few added items would be sought, this was because they thought the Commission’sleaders had accepted the White House notion of what information was critical to the ‘Commission's work. Both Gorelick and Zelikow said they had not known of any such ‘Commission acceptance of the White House definition of what was core. Zelikow said he thought the definition of the core had come entirely from the White House, that it had never been accepted by the Commission, and that a quite different view of what information was crucial had been repeatedly presented by Commission staff to White House staff. Gorelick concurred, adding that she would not have accepted the White House definition of the core, and did not feel other commissioners would have accepted it either. Turning to the separate request to add another 51 articles to the core group that could be summarized for the Commission, both sides agreed this issue was connected to the way the Review Team report was drafted. Gorelick explained that, in order to portray the overall flow of information to the President, she would have asked that a couple of, hundred articles be transferred. But Zelikow persuaded her that this task could be handled with a narrative overview, the material now included in the Review Team report. The 51 were articles of particular interest. Cunningham said the White House asked CIA to see if it could other documents communicating the same information. Both sides agreed that the process could not be held up for weeks waiting for such a time consuming search to be completed. Gorelick also observed that some articles were important just for showing what was given to the President. Cunningham asked if articles like that could be delineated; Gorelick said she could try. Responding to Cunningham’s argument that looking for any useful information was too low a threshold for passing such sensitive information to the Commission, Gorelick and Zelikow explained their approach. They emphasized that a much larger number of articles had contained bits of interesting information that might otherwise be unavailable. But they had focused only on articles of the highest importance or uniqueness to the Commission’s investigation, taking into account the staff's need for detailed sifting of evidence. Zelikow stressed that the Commission had accepted the burden of showing that the information in these articles must be demonstrably critical to the Commission’s work and had therefore provided brief written justifications in every case. Gonzales said he was prepared to look at the 51 articles himself, Since Cunningham had come up with his own list of 11 articles that seemed vital from a White House perspective, Gorelick and Zelikow agreed to hear Cunningham’s views. Further, Gorelick said she would be happy to look at any suggestions the White House had for how the Review Team report might be modified to meet White House concerns. A meeting to do this work would be scheduled. Invited by Zelikow to explain the White House objectives and stakes in this problem, Gonzales said the objectives were to gain clear limits and certainty about what would be shared. They were prepared to go beyond the core if they could “cabin” it, defining what the Commission really needed. The President had agreed that if the Commission reallyneeded something, they should get what they need. Gonzales also said that the White House understood the Commission’s need to be able to say they have reviewed everything, that “somebody has to be able to say we've reviewed all the potentially relevant documents” that might prove or disprove assertions about 9/1 1-related warnings. As for stakes, Gonzales said that PDB articles were not traditionally shared with any outside entity. The White House was anxious to minimize direct access, both to avoid setting a damaging precedent and to protect this very sensitive information. After an exchange on the divergent standards that the Commission and the White House had suggested for core interest, Zelikow emphasized that everyone had agreed that the ‘Commission should get “what it really needs.” The sides should thus engage the substance and see where they really disagreed. Gorelick throughout expressed her concern about the amount of time this process was consuming and was reluctant to engage in further redrafting exercises. Hamilton strongly pressed her and Zelikow to keep at it. She reluctantly agreed. Hamilton said that he was not a lawyer and the matter seemed relatively simple to him. There was a single criterion: What is vital to the Commission? Zelikow tried to pull this more toward the wording of ‘will the Commission get the information it needs.” Hamilton said the Review Team should look at the statutory mandate. Then it should look at the PDBs. Then it should ask: Is this PDB vital to the Commission carrying out its mandate? ‘The meeting ended with the plan that Gorelick and Zelikow would soon meet with Cunningham to continue working on this issue. (That meeting was subsequently scheduled for Wednesday morning, February 4.)