Justice Dept. Reviewing Deutch Case for Illegalities

The Justice Department is reexamining whether former CIA Director John M. Deutch violated the law when he used unsecured computers to create and store top-secret files on everything from covert operations to spy satellites in 1995 and 1996, officials said Thursday.

The reopening of the controversial case comes 10 months after Justice Department lawyers advised the CIA in writing that they would not prosecute Deutch for improper handling of classified material during his rocky 20-month tenure as America’s top intelligence official.

At her weekly news briefing, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno said that the department’s criminal division is reviewing the case “to see what appropriate action should be addressed or whether there is any basis for it.”

She refused to say whether the inquiry would focus on Deutch or would include allegations by some CIA staff members that Deutch’s chief aides deliberately slowed--or even obstructed--the initial inquiry in an attempt to protect the CIA director.

Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that he welcomed Reno’s review. “I’m amazed that they didn’t do it earlier and do it more diligently,” he said.

“I think all of this is baffling and very troubling,” Shelby said. “It certainly doesn’t help the CIA. And it certainly doesn’t help the morale at the CIA. Because people out there know, if they did something like this, they would be cashiered or prosecuted.”

Shelby’s committee interviewed Deutch behind closed doors Tuesday, and Shelby said that other current and former CIA officials will be called to testify next week.

The oversight panel launched its inquiry after parts of a classified report prepared by the CIA’s inspector general in July were leaked to the press earlier this month, causing a public furor.

The CIA had given the classified report to the Senate committee, as well as its counterpart in the House, in August. Neither took any action at the time.

An unclassified version of the CIA inspector general’s report, released Tuesday, was highly critical of both Deutch and the agency’s investigation of the case.

The report said that as CIA director from May 1995 until December 1996, Deutch “processed a large volume of highly classified information” on government-owned unsecured desktop computers at his homes in Bethesda, Md., and Belmont, Mass., at his two Washington-area offices, and on a CIA-issued laptop computer that he used when he traveled.

At least four of the five computers had modems and were connected to the Internet. None used encryption to protect the data. The report said that Deutch used the computers to send personal e-mail and conduct online banking, using an online identity and password that “may have increased the risk of electronic attack.”

The report said that, despite agency rules, Deutch took “no steps to restrict unauthorized access to the information and thereby [placed] national security information at risk.” It noted that he refused to station a security guard at his home and gave the code for his home’s only security alarm to a noncitizen domestic worker who had not been cleared by the CIA.

Among the sensitive files found on Deutch’s computers and hard drives, the report said, were reports on covert operations, top-secret code words and communications intelligence, memos to President Clinton and the classified budget for the National Reconnaissance Program, which builds and operates the nation’s spy satellites.

“Whether any of the information was stolen or compromised remains unknown,” the report concluded.

The report faulted current CIA Director George J. Tenet and several top CIA officials for moving too slowly in the case. Tenet, the report said, “should have involved himself more forcefully to ensure a proper resolution of the matter.”

Deutch publicly apologized Tuesday for what he termed his “errors.” He did not return a telephone call Thursday to his office in Cambridge, Mass. He is a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The CIA initially referred the case to the Justice Department on March 19, 1999. Reno declined prosecution on April 14 and suggested that the CIA conduct a review to determine if Deutch still should retain access to classified information.

Tenet, the CIA director, revoked Deutch’s top security clearances in August and took the unusual step of announcing it at the time. A CIA spokesman declined to comment on the case Thursday.