Posted on 05/25/2004 7:19:57 PM PDT by jmstein7
Jamie Gorelick – What a Girl Wants
By Jonathan M. Stein
Jamie Gorelick wants to be Attorney General – badly. That is why she agreed to be on the 9/11 Commission. Her reward for sufficiently tarring President Bush in the Commission’s report would be a guaranteed position as Attorney General in a Democrat administration. Jamie Gorelick wants to be Attorney General, and she will do anything to get the job.
Make no mistake – this is an opportunity Ms. Gorelick has been savoring since December of 1996, when Bill Clinton decided to keep Janet Reno on as Attorney General in his second term. Soon after that decision, she departed from her number two slot at Justice, biding her time in FNMA and private practice. Clinton needed Reno’s apparent veneer of impartiality to wade through his myriad scandals.
As an interesting side note, Ms. Gorelick also had designs on the top spot in the CIA; Clinton passed upon her candidacy for that position as well, though it had been reported that she was being considered, along with Sandy Berger. Aside from a brief stint as the general counsel of the U.S. Department of Defense, her qualifications for that position – Director of the CIA – remain a mystery. Her judgment on matters of intelligence – e.g. the now-famous information “wall” between the CIA and FBI – has been, at best questionable; at worst, it should properly be the subject of the very investigation she is involved in as a 9/11 Commissioner.
This sort of glaring conflict of interest is nothing new for Ms. Gorelick.
For example, consider the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) scandal – which, it should be noted, was “handled” by Senator John Kerry and his Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Ms. Gorelick had represented Clark Clifford and Robert Altman when they tried to get their former employer First American Bank (a BCCI property) to pay their legal fees, though the Justice Department was involved in the prosecution of BCCI. Further, she had close ties to the embattled lawyers in the White House when the Clintons brought her in to replace Philip Heymann, former Deputy Attorney General, during the Whitewater and Vince Foster scandals. Mr. Heymann had been abruptly fired by the Clinton White House when he objected to the manner in which the White House was handling the Foster investigation – and he was almost immediately replaced by close Clinton ally Gorelick.
During the Travelgate investigation, yet another Clinton scandal, Ms. Gorelick’s Associate Deputy Attorney General, David Margolis, apparently attempted to interfere with the prosecution of Billy Dale and Gary Wright by improperly divulging information disclosed at a grand jury proceeding to Democrat John Conyers – at the time, Conyers was Chairman of the House Government Operations Committee. Despite this glaring, egregious breach of the rules of criminal procedure by Margolis – which would benefit the Clinton White House – Gorelick took no action against Margolis and kept him on. Gorelick is an unabashed political operative to the end.
Jamie Gorelick has been described as a iron-fisted and politically dexterous deputy attorney general. It was well-known that she handled the day-to-day operations at Justice, whereas Reno functioned as more of a figurehead who lost her compass when she lost Gorelick in early 1997. However, Gorelick’s added value was her political acumen. For example, when the Republicans began to attack Clinton’s judicial appointments as soft on crime – prior to the 1996 election – Gorelick set up a “war room” similar to the Clinton “war room” of the 1992 election. Her entire purpose was to control the news cycle and bolster the images of the liberal judges and lawyers in Clinton’s roster. In many ways, Gorelick is every bit as slick as her boss was – i.e. Clinton.
Ms. Gorelick’s seemingly inappropriate functions outraged some commentators, such as Mark Levin of the Landmark Legal Foundation. Levin pondered “[p]recisely what . . . the lawyers assigned to the Justice ‘war room’ [were] doing, and with whom [were] they at ‘war’?” At the same time, Levin also noted that “Mrs. Gorelick's former law firm -Miller, Cassidy, Larroca and Lewin – [was] representing Craig Livingstone, the man at the center of the [Clinton] Filegate scandal [being investigated by the Justice Department].” Not surprisingly, Gorelick, who was effectively running Justice at the time, did not recuse herself.
Jamie Gorelick wants to finally emerge from the shadow of Janet Reno, not merely as the de facto Attorney General, but as the actual attorney general of the United States. Her outrageous conflict of interest as a Commissioner of the 9/11 panel is just par for the course, and her keen political skills will enable her to deflect criticism and keep her position – despite the strong evidence that she should, in fact, step down as a Commissioner and be sworn-in as a witness. A former Democrat staffer recently stated that Ms. Gorelick is on the commission for one reason – and it isn’t for her legal mind. Gorelick in on the Commission “to make sure Bush and his team look as bad as possible and to protect the Clintons and Reno." Her reward for doing her job well. . . the powerful position she has coveted for seven years.
Gorelick Ping! MUST READ!!!
Gorelick Ping! MUST READ!!!
Incredible!
Damn - that was good - worthy of any big name journalist...
BUMP!!!
While it seemed to me Gorelick's primary conflict of interest - in being the individual most directly responsible for the failure of American intelligence on 9/11 - was enough to make the 9/11 commission a mockery, it was actually their snubbing of the heroes of 9/11 that made the public file them as hacks.
I can only add a statement by Slick Willie, something to the effect that "one good intern, deserves another."
I have nothing to add but I will BUMP it...
Ping for later reading
How does this woman sleep at night? You'd think she'd be crawling over broken glass to apologize to families of the victims of 9/11.
Spot On! Another reason Kerry must not win.
I didn't click that this wasn't already published before I read it. I have no suggestions. It reads very well.
" A former Democrat staffer recently stated that Ms. Gorelick is on the commission for one reason...to make sure Bush and his team look as bad as possible and to protect the Clintons and Reno. (and)...Her reward for doing her job well. . . the powerful position she has coveted for seven years."
How could you possibly need more than that???
This lady would be to the office of Attorney General what Jocelyn Elders was to the office of Surgeon General. YUCK!
Her act as a clown on the 9-11 circus will not get kerry to many vote,if any at all.
Beautiful job. Considering your request, I'll go back over it.
Didn't she have dirty fingers in both Waco and the OKC bombing?
This is the thing that was second best to Janet Reno. Morals or conscience? Nah. It never heard of them. From what I saw of it on the 9-11 commission, the prospect of it becoming AG is reason enough to beat Kerry.
From: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/part4.htm
The essential details may be found in the article "Who is Jack Ryan?" (Wall Street Journal, Monday, August 1, 1994):
"Attorneys for Mr. Clifford and Mr. Altman included independent counsel Robert Fiske and Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, as well as Robert Bennett, president Clinton's attorney in the Paula Corbin Jones case. And, of course, Arkansas investment banking giant Stephens Inc., which says all connections with the BCCI front men ended in 1978, does acknowledge it handled their initial brokerage for the purchase.
"Indeed, in the early takeover maneuvers Financial General Bankshares, First American's predecessor company, brought a 1978 lawsuit naming 'Bert Lance, Bank of Credit & Commerce International, Agha Hasan Abedhi, Eugene J. Metzger, Jackson Stephens, Stephens Inc., Systematics Inc. and John Does numbers 1 through 25.' The suit was ultimately settled, but intriguingly, briefs for Systematics, a Stephens property, were submitted by a trio of lawyers including C.J. Giroir and Webster L. Hubbell and signed by Hillary Rodham."
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