I want that answer too. What IS it with these people not putting dates on their correspondence?
Someone want to take a guess on what Henry Hyde is referring to in this April, 1995 House Judiciary Committee meeting? Out of the blue, he asked Louie Freeh if anyone had "overruled his request to surveill certain terroristic targets." This House Judiciary Committee meeting is one month after the now-declassified Gorelick "Build-a-Wall" memo and 13 days before the OKC bombing.
I'm wondering if Freeh or someone else in the FBI had submitted a FISA request for surveillance on foreigners -- foreigners who were planning a bombing in the Heartland. If this is what Henry Hyde is referring to below, that would be one reason Gorelick wrote her "Build-a-Wall" memo to Freeh and others.
Have we determined the exact motivation for Gorelick writing her March 4, 1995 memo yet? I haven't read that entire memo yet.
APRIL 6, 1995, THURSDAY
CAPITOL HILL HEARING WITH DEFENSE DEPARTMENT PERSONNEL
HEARING OF THE HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
SUBJECT: INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM
CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE HENRY HYDE (R-IL)
PANEL II; 10:55 AM
PANEL II
WITNESSES:
ADM. WILLIAM STUDEMAN, ACTING DIR., CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
JAMIE S. GORELICK, DEP. ATTY. GEN., U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
LOUIS J. FREEH, DIRECTOR, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
AMB. PHILIP WILCOX, COORDINATOR, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
2141 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING
REP. HYDE: The second panel will come forward. We are pleased to have with us today four members of the Clinton administration who will educate this committee on the threats of terrorism from their specific perspectives, and to address various provisions of the administration's proposal which was introduced by Congressman Schumer, H.R. 896. In the order of their testimony, let me introduce, on my right, acting director, William O. Studeman, admiral and acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency; next to Admiral Studeman is Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick, United States Department of Justice; and next to Ms. Gorelick is the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Louis J. Freeh; and next to Mr. Freeh is Ambassador Philip Wilcox, coordinator of the Counterterrorism Section, United States Department of State. We are most grateful to have such a distinguished panel here, and we welcome you, and ask Admiral Studeman to commence. And we will go through the panel, and then if you will be patient we will try to formulate some questions. Thank you.(snip)
REP. HYDE: Good. Director Freeh, has the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review overruled your request to surveill certain terroristic targets?
MR. FREEH: No, sir.
REP. HYDE: That has not happened?
MR. FREEH: Unless you can be more specific I don't know that I could answer that. But no, as far as I know, it's not.
REP. HYDE: All right, I don't think it's appropriate to be more specific, but that was something that I had heard that concerned me. If you say it didn't happen --
MR. FREEH: No, we have recently -- the Attorney General and the Deputy and myself discussed some -- not changes, but clarifying our mutual interpretation of the Attorney General's guidelines with respect to investigating terrorism cases to ensure that we are not missing anything. But other than that, I don't really have any complaints about it.
(snip)
I wondered about that, too. What prompted Goerlick one day to get out of bed, go to work, and issue this memo? If, as she has indicated, it was "statutory," then why bother with the memo?
A letter was sent to the 911 commission. The letter, dated April 5, 2004, talks about Ramsey Yousef and a New York mobster named Scorpa. I think the memo is related to what the letter describes--that the government was given information that was either ignored, hidden, denied, who knows--and the letter and other related information can be found in the history of my comments.
The US attorney's office in New York was using Scarpa as an informant in prison. There was a point, described in FBI 302s, in which Yousef, who was flown over the World Trade Center on his way to trial or prison, said that in American airplanes the terrorists have bombs any time they want them. Fox News mentioned the "Intelligence Timeline" that was an attachment to the letter. Even more curious is that certain FBI 302s are unavialable. We also learn that Flight 800 was a terrorist act, that at least two other airline crashes were terrorist related, and that we, the American public, can really do nothing more than heckle the actors on the stage called the 911 commission, while those with the better seats approve, so far, of the production. The script to this play was written beforehand and I will hazard a guess that not even history will learn the truth.