Gorelick fires back at critics

Boston Globe ^ | 4-19-04 | Darryl Fears

[Indy Pendance]

WASHINGTON -- Jamie S. Gorelick, the embattled Sept. 11 Commission member who served as a deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration, fired back at critics who said she erected the "wall" between the FBI and the CIA that kept them from sharing intelligence and possibly from doing more to prevent the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

n an opinion piece written for yesterday's Washington Post, Gorelick said that a memo she wrote in March 1995 about information sharing between the two agencies "permits freer coordination between intelligence and criminal investigators than was subsequently permitted" by two other guidelines.

Gorelick's opinion came five days after Attorney General John D. Ashcroft partly attributed the 2001 attacks to her memo during his testimony before the commission, and four days after Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Republican of Wisconsin, called on Gorelick to resign, citing "an inherent conflict of interest."

In the middle of his commission appearance, Ashcroft took the highly unusual step of declassifying Gorelick's memo, saying the wall was "the single greatest structural cause for the September 11th problem."

[Indy Pendance]

James Sensenbrenner, my congressman!

[Tredge]

Her excuse is at least as dumb as the ones that hundreds of thousands of people use every year to try and get out of jury duty.

She is on the wrong side of the interview. If this body wants to recover any credibility as a fact-finding commission it must interview Gorelick. Being already placed on the commission is not immunity from being questioned for what she did before that. Washington politics be damned, there is no immunity from any questioned asked of any Federal politician. They wanted the job so bad, they can take what goes with it.

[Jimmy Valentine]

A big old bumpity bump for this one!

[smiley]

So typical of the Clinton administration and their ilk to point their shameless fingers at someone else to blame....how we despise these morons.

[xzins]

Just the fact that she felt compelled to write an op-ed piece to the Wash Post PROVES that she should not be on the commission but should be in the witness chair.

The 9/11 Commission is a Joke

[ValerieUSA]

I wish the 9/11 Commission was merely a joke. The body is a poisonous viper embedding venom in the entire anti-terrorism effort around the world, weakening us and our allies.

[xzins]

It has no credibility

It's a joke

[stylin_geek]

Hmm, your simile evokes shades of Cleopatra.

[rudypoot]

Cheney worked for Haliburton and he can't even say the word "energy" without the left crying foul. To the left, the gorelick memo is "just a sideshow". What is the standard these people use for determining "conflict of interest"?

[jackbill]

Andrew C. McCarthy, a former chief assistant U.S. attorney who led the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and eleven others, tears Gore-lick's piece to pieces at:

http://www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200404190849.asp

The money comment:

"But imagine for a moment that Gorelick had not been appointed to serve on the commission. Is there anyone on the planet who doesn't think she'd have been subpoenaed to testify after her memorandum came to light during last week's proceedings? Is there anyone who thinks she could have avoided testifying under such circumstances by writing an op-ed?"