Gorelick Agonistes Her refusal to resign taints the 9/11 Commission.

WSJ ^ | 4/24/04 | WSJ editorial

[Elkiejg]

Jamie Gorelick has now issued her defense for staying on the September 11 Commission, and the usual media and Democratic suspects are rallying behind her. So let's put the issue as simply as possible: If Clinton-era Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick were not already a Commission member, does anybody doubt that she would be called to testify before it?

The Commission is interviewing nearly every major law enforcement and defense figure in two Administrations, and surely a Deputy AG was one of them. More than that, Ms. Gorelick was the author of a memo that has now become central to the debate over what went wrong before 9/11 in the way the U.S. dealt with terror threats.

Yet Ms. Gorelick now claims she can judge everyone else as a Commissioner because her now famous 1995 memo was no big deal and merely codified existing procedures. Even if we grant her this point, which many others dispute, shouldn't she be required to explain it under oath? What gives her an Olympian exemption?

No serious person on either side of the aisle doubts that the "wall" of separation between intelligence agents and criminal investigators that was memorialized in her memo was a problem. Everyone also now agrees that poor intelligence sharing was one of the key reasons U.S. authorities failed to detect the September 11 plot. We can think of several questions for Ms. Gorelick that would prove far more illuminating than anything that emerged from the Condoleezza Rice show. Such as:

• Ms. Gorelick, you write in the Washington Post that you did not invent the wall, which you argue was just "a set of procedures implementing a 1978 statute (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA)." Yet your 1995 memo to the FBI and World Trade Center bombing prosecutor asked for procedures that "go beyond what is legally required." Is it possible to merely implement the law and at the same time go beyond what it requires?

• Follow-up: Ms. Gorelick, no doubt you know that when the Ashcroft Justice Department finally challenged guidelines of the type you issued, the FISA Appeals Court agreed with your own 1995 assessment that those guidelines had never been necessary. In other words, the court said we didn't need the Patriot Act to permit greater intelligence sharing than your memo had allowed. Then why write a memo that imposed such restrictions?

Far from being unnecessary, Ms. Gorelick's testimony goes to the heart of the U.S. government's 1990s' failure to get its antiterror act together. She is right that before 9/11 the Ashcroft Justice Department endorsed her "wall" policy, but so what? They were wrong too.

What is clear is that for some reason the nature and height of "the wall" underwent a qualitative change in the 1990s, as any investigator or prosecutor who dealt with it now says. Whereas previous interpretations of the FISA statute had limited the ability of prosecutors to produce certain intelligence in court, the new rules effectively prohibited people from communicating at all. There seems to have been destructive tension among Justice, the FBI, and the lower FISA court at the time of the 1995 memo, tension that may in the end explain Ms. Gorelick's behavior. But we won't have a clear picture until she and some of the other major players--including members of the FISA court--testify.

The 9/11 Commissioners are only undermining their own credibility in rallying to Ms. Gorelick's defense. Her conflict of interest can't be solved merely by recusing herself from discreet portions of the probe, since as a Commissioner she will still serve as judge and jury on everyone else in government. She should have recused herself entirely from even questioning John Ashcroft. We also take no comfort in Republican Orrin Hatch's endorsement, since one of Ms. Gorelick's former law partners represented him in the BCCI case and he whisked her through Senate confirmation in 1994. The 9/11 Commission was supposed to be a fair-minded, non-partisan probe that would help our democratic government learn from its mistakes. Ms. Gorelick's failure to resign and testify herself in the face of a clear conflict of interest is reason enough for the American public to distrust its ultimate judgments.

[Elkiejg]

Hatch.....the DNC's best friend. I'm convinced all politicans are crooked.

[Unicorn]

DITTO

[Diogenesis]

---

Disgraced Commissioner Kean: "Ms Gorelick is one of the finest members
of the commission and one of the most bipartisan members.
People ought to stay out of our business."

[b4its2late]

What is clear is that for some reason the nature and height of "the wall" underwent a qualitative change in the 1990s, as any investigator or prosecutor who dealt with it now says.

And what administration was in office the majority of those years?

[demlosers]

Rats never resign.

[Just mythoughts]

Hatch of BCCI has a conflict of interest and his cover has been lifted. Time for him, Spector and McCain to spend some quality time with their families.

[Peach]

Yet your 1995 memo to the FBI and World Trade Center bombing prosecutor asked for procedures that "go beyond what is legally required."

The Clinton administration did this deliberately so the public would continue to think the first WTC bombing was the act of a small group of terrorists and would not see the bigger picture of the threat that was headed our way.

[Diogenesis]

"According to a 1998 Senate testimony of former CIA director James
Woolsey, powerful financier Khalid bin Mahfouz’ younger sister is
married to Osama bin Laden,. (US Senate, Senate Judiciary
Committee, Federal News Service, 3 Sept. 1998, See also Wayne
Madsen, Questionable Ties, In These Times,12 Nov. 2001 )
Bin Mahfouz is suspected to have funneled millions of dollars to the Al
Qaeda network.(See Tom Flocco, Scoop.co.nz 28 Aug. 2002)
Now, "by sheer coincidence", former New Jersey governor Thomas
Kean, the man chosen by President Bush to lead the 9/11 commission
also has business ties with bin Mahfouz and Al-Amoudi.
Thomas Kean is a director (and shareholder) of Amerada Hess
Corporation , which is involved in the Hess-Delta joint venture with
Delta Oil of Saudi Arabia (owned by the bin Mahfouz and Al-Amoudi
clans)...
Now you would think that being a business partner of the brother in
law and alleged financier of "Enemy No. 1" would also be considered a
bona fide "conflict of interest", particularly when your mandate --as
part of the 9/11 Commission's work-- is to investigate "Enemy No. 1".
"(Michel Chossudovsky, New Chairman of 9/11 Commission had
business ties with Osama's Brother in Law , Centre for Research on Globalization, December 2002 )
Who's Who on the 9/11 "Independent" Commission

[samtheman]

The 9/11 Circus of Commissars.

The Greatest Show Trial On Earth.

[Just mythoughts]

Thanks.

The incest is built upon incest. I knew there was a reason why this "The Commission" put Clarke forth as the second coming. "The Commission" was presenting a "Soviet style show trial" for the WHOLE WORLD.

Treating Condi Rice like a second class citizen was also for a "world" audience. Ashcroft stuck a pin in their incestuous "show trial" so some of us in America could and would look beyond the hype and lies!!!!

[chainsaw]

Gore lick has placed a wall between truth and 911 to protect the most corrupt and immoral president in our nations history. We all should be asking congress to remove her from the commission and force her to testify, under oath, about her involvement in the terrorism visited upon our country.

[Diogenesis]

[sport]

Yes he is.

As far as I am concernedm he ranks with kennedy and kerry.

It is my personal belief that hilary keeps his fbi file close at hand and uses it to tweak his balls with when the democrats need an ally.

In closing, on an earlier thread, 15 Senate Republicans demanded that gorelick resing from the "9-11 Commission" and give testimony.Everey Republican in the Senate should have joined the 15.

That is the problem that Fisk has in confronting the democrats and getting the Judicial nominees confirmed. He knows that in a head-to-head battle with the democrats he can only count on these 15 Republicans.

[Just mythoughts]

LOL Good one!!!!


Their spin job with Bobby Woodward did not go toooo well, poor old Bobby had to spent the time since explaining not his book but what he said in that "infomercial".

[backhoe]

-GORELICK GATE: Developing--

[Just mythoughts]

We need to give this "The Commission" a name before they come out with their FINAL HOAX!!!!!

Something that when said everyone on all sides knows exactly what is being talked about.

[Paloma_55]

We should elevate her to represent the value the commission represents...

The Gorelick Commission

[ReleaseTheHounds]

Time for him, Spector and McCain to spend some quality time with their families.

Add "Chuck Hegel" and I would say: "Dittoes! Dittoes! Dittoes!"

[backhoe]

We need to give this "The Commission" a name...

I will attempt to jump-start my brain, and ponder this- it's a good idea.

Something along the lines of

"The 9-11 Omission-- the final Hoax"

[Steve Van Doorn]

How much is this show trail costing us?