The Gorelick Rosetta Stone

Hats off to the Wall Street Journal for a spectacular observation, perhaps the Rosetta Stone of postmillennial national security.

Let its boiled-down essence not escape your attention: the ongoing dividends of Chinagate may well have included 9/11.

To set the stage, recall that Bill Clinton ensured his loyal minions populated the US Attorneys' offices nationwide when he fired every last US Attorney at the dawn of his Administration, then appointed his own. Next, as we have seen through Jamie Gorelick's startling memo[1], he saw to it that domestic law enforcement was blinded to foreign intelligence information. He then methodically offered up White House access and key strategic technologies to the highest bidder: China, and Indonesian/Chinese billionaire donors with close ties to China's dictatorial regime. Intriguingly, Clinton's Department of Justice's signature assault on Microsoft also appears to have been to the benefit of Indonesian/Chinese billionaires, who just happened to be the originating funders of the private venture fund which was the largest shareholder in lead plaintiff Netscape at the time[2]

With the declassification of former Deputy Attorney General Gorelick's memo, the picture comes into sharp focus: the Clinton Administration was not just:

Yes, the economy, Clinton's vaunted economy, with its skyrocketing stock-market and spectacular 5.6% 1996 unemployment rate (which of course puts George W. Bush’s dismal 2004 5.6% unemployment rate to shame). This unstoppable economy screeched to an ignominious halt in the second half of 2000 as the tech sector imploded[4] - a multi-trillion-dollar evaporation of shareholder wealth driven in significant part by the DOJ's pursuit of tech bellwether Microsoft, which put a measurable damper on enthusiasm for big-cap technology stocks and funding for new tech ventures alike.

Follow the money. The legacy of that Administration is not just one of incompetence and inattention culminating in an innocence-crushing September morning once it was safely out of office. It is one of malevolent, calculated wholesaling of loyalty for political gain, with Gorelick's Wall providing cover by blinding law enforcement efforts that might have made a difference.

Still, Chinagate was exposed, and in a sane world it would have hit the political world like one of the Chinese ICBMs it facilitated. But Clinton was untouchable - immunized! - after the Lewinsky obstruction-of-justice mess fizzled like the captivating but comparatively feeble bottle-rocket it was. Today the damage extends far beyond the smoldering pits of lower Manhattan and the Pentagon. The world now stands on the cusp of decades of global turmoil in the face of emboldened and metastasized radical Islamism, most recently including al Qaeda’s successful gambit towards reestablishing Moorish dispensation in Andalusia[5].

Is Chinagate old news? Water under the bridge? Something for the 9/11 Commission's Democrat partisans to pooh-pooh and ignore as they recklessly paint their anti-Bush pastiche?

Not if you continue to mourn the thousands dead on that grim September morning. And not if you consider what other reflexively anti-Defense politician currently angling for the Presidency has financial ties to some of the same scandalous campaign donors as Bill Clinton: John Kerry is today's victorious campaign-donation choice of Chinagate's Huang-linked George Chao-Chi Chu, described as having "unusual access to high-ranking Communist officials in China" [6]. And that is old news, in a way: for in 1996 John Kerry received cash from Johnny Chung and Liu Chaoying, daughter of a powerful Chinese military official, for providing high-level access to Federal securities regulators. Kerry's cash came from transfers sent to Chung on orders from the chief of Chinese military intelligence[7].

"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." - George Santayana

2 At the time of the DOJ's action against Microsoft was initiated, lead plaintiff Netscape's largest shareholder was the private venture fund of Amerindo Investment Advisors. "The name Amerindo came from the fund's first investors, a group of Indonesian Chinese who wanted [the founder, Cuban expatriate Alberto] Vilar to call the firm American Indonesian Singaporean Investment Co. but settled for an abbreviation." -- Fortune, October 25, 1999

3 Caspar Weinberger, Washington Times, Sept. 2, 2003, reviewing Miniter: "The president never supported Mr. Woolsey's urgent request for Arabic-language translators for the CIA in 1994. A separate feud between Mr. Woolsey and Sen. Dennis DeConcini, Arizona Democrat, was allowed to run its course without direction by the Clinton White House, which further set back the CIA director's appeal for Arabic translators." So, as the author concludes, "a bureaucratic feud and President Clinton's indifference kept America blind and deaf as bin Laden plotted."

Ahhhh… the good old days of the Clinton scandals. Good to see them making a comeback. I think this calls for a Citizen Clinton flashback:

DISSOLVE: INT. CONGRESSIONAL HEARING ROOM - 2000

A long shot of the Congressional Hearing Room. Janet Reno is sitting at a table in a gray wool dress. To her left is Attorney David Kendall, to her right is Attorney Johnny Cochran. Rep. Lindsey Graham is questioning her.

GRAHAM: Miss Reno, when you were given this report, in November of 1998, why did you not act to stop this hemorrhaging of our nuclear weapons data?

RENO: Congressman, in all due respect, at the time, all the prosecutors in my office were looking into serious allegations that some churches were maintaining tax-exempt status while actively “not liking” President Clinton.

GRAHAM: Let me read from the report: “the Energy Department recorded 324 attacks on its unclassified computer systems from outside the United States between October 1997 and June 1998, including instances when outsiders successfully gained complete access and total control to create, view, modify or execute any and all information stored on the system.”

COCHRAN: Mr. Graham, have you ever used the word, “Chink” when referring to an individual of an Asian persuasion?

GRAHAM: You were warned Mr. Cochran. Would the Federal Marshals please remove Mr. Cochran from the hearing room at this time?

Two armed men in suits pick up Johnny Cochran by the arm pits, and drag him towards the doorway.

COCHRAN: The system of justice demands that your racist past be explored! We have evidence that while in college, you ordered a “Kamikaze” in a bar called Whitloe’s. That bartender is willing to testify about that horrific, denigrating slur. Nuclear weaponry pales in its ability to destroy when compared to the racist utterances that emanate...

He is gone from the room. Janet Reno is really looking nervous now, and begins to shake as Mr. Graham continues.

GRAHAM: Miss Reno, a look at the records of your Justice Department, reveals that federal officials requested 2,686 wiretaps between 1993 and 1997. Your Justice Department approved 2,685. In those four years, just one request was turned down - the request to wiretap the most destructive spy in the history of the United States, Mr. Wen Ho Lee.

RENO: A simple bureaucratic snafu?

GRAHAM: I have here a picture taken in 1994 - September, I believe...are you familiar with this picture?

RENO: (now openly sobbing) Yes, I am. I am.

GRAHAM: And where was this photograph taken?

RENO: In my office... (sob)... my office at the Justice Department.

GRAHAM: In this picture, you are wearing a wastepaper basket on your head, and you are holding a three-quarters-empty bottle of scotch. You appear to be inebriated. Were you intoxicated at the time this picture was taken?

RENO: Yes, congressman, I was shitfaced. Drunk as a sailor.

GRAHAM: On your left is James Riady, on your right is Mr. Wen Ho Lee, and to his right is General Ding Henggao, former commander of the Chinese Commission on Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense. Mr. Riady is handing you a few hundred dollar bills, and a new bottle of scotch. Mr. Lee is handing the General, who is a leading Chinese Communist expert on nuclear technology, a folder. The folder is coded FXT00D129. Are you aware of what our investigation showed this folder to contain?

RENO: The access codes and passwords for our defense department computers.

GRAHAM: And...

RENO: (bawling) Our nuclear launching codes!

Gasps and exclamations break out all over the hearing room. Flash bulbs are exploding rapid fire. The committee chairman begins banging furiously with his gavel, as Kendall jumps off his chair. He picks up one of the three phone books he has been sitting on, and begins beating Janet Reno with it.

KENDALL: Shut up, you stupid bitch!! Don’t tell them anymore!! We could all get the death penalty!!

The armed federal agents move forward to grab him, but before they get a chance, Janet Reno rifles a backhand across Kendall’s face, and he falls to the ground, bloodied and sobbing. A wet stain grows around his groin area, as the scene fades out.

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