Someone printed 10 copies of some proposal. The proposal was to actually DO something about the intelligence they had that Bin Laden & co. were trying to cause trouble at the Millenium celebrations (Dec. 2000).
The copies were circulated to the higher-ups, Berger, Allbright, Cohen, the usual suspects.
They all wrote their notes and reactions on their own copies, which amounted to "this won't go over", "we need to poll this", "Can't support this", etc. So there were 10 copies of the same doc, but with separate notes.,
Berger didn't want the Commission to see these notes, showing what poll slaves they were. So he pilfered all the copies.
Clinton people KNEW that AQ was in the United States and did NOTHING. They didn't even follow their OWN recommendations.
It's why Ashcroft mentioned in his 9/11 testimony that it's important to read the report because it was clear the recommendations were not followed. He said they would be hard recommendations to implement and there would be criticism and he knew that because he's in that position now post 9/11.
I think your theory is sound. That action is probably pretty sound procedure.
However, I would guess that the comments would have been rather raucus and foolhearty, making fun of the CIA and/or the FBI .. or even some comments purporting to play headgames with the intel groups.
This group has no respect for convention, sense of duty; they were rude, disrespectful of govt protocol. I believe the notes were damaging in character issues and showed a complete lack of seriousness about national security.
That makes the most sense of any explanation I've heard.