Big Media Networks Ignore Gorelick Role, Highlight Bremer Rebuke of Bush Team

On Wednesday, the Justice Department released memos showing that in 1995 U.S. Attorneys objected to Clinton Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick’s guidelines about barring the CIA from sharing information related to terrorists inside the U.S., which Gorelick herself, now a member of the 9-11 Commission, conceded “go beyond what is legally required.”

Thursday’s Washington Times put the freshly-released information on its front page, noting how Gorelick had rejected “criticism from U.S. prosecutors, who feared it could undermine future efforts to stop terrorist attacks.” On Wednesday night, FNC’s Special Report with Brit Hume featured a full story on it.

But not a syllable aired about the subject Wednesday night on the ABC, CBS, NBC, CNBC evening newscasts, nor on CNN’s NewsNight, and all the morning shows avoided the topic on Thursday morning. On Thursday night, in the wake of the White House rebuking Justice for posting the documents, ABC, CNN, CNBC and NBC all ran brief mentions of how President Bush began his session with the 9/11 Commission by saying he was disappointed for the release of the documents embarrassing to Gorelick, but none let viewers in on what the memos revealed -- an amazing lack of interest given that any effort to suppress information, at least by this White House, normally energizes the press corps.

The Thursday CBS Evening News didn’t utter a word about Gorelick, but like NBC, found time to highlight how Paul Bremer had hit the administration, back in February of 2001 in its fifth week, for being inattentive to terrorism. John Roberts asked and answered, with the text of Bremer’s February 26, 2001 remarks on screen:
“Was terrorism a priority for the incoming Bush administration? And today comes more evidence it wasn’t. In transcripts of a speech given six months before the attacks, Paul Bremer, now the President’s point man in Iraq, warned: 'The new administration seems to be paying no attention to the problem of terrorism. What they will do is stagger along until there’s a major incident and then suddenly say, 'Oh my God, shouldn’t we be organized to deal with this? They’ve been given a window of opportunity with very little terrorism now, and they’re not taking advantage of it.’ Contacted late today, the Commission said it might be interested to hear more about Bremer’s speech, particularly since it seems to suggest something quite different from what the White House has been saying.”

Dan Rather teased the April 29 CBS Evening News by putting the burden on Bush: “Why did President Bush fail to act on pre-9/11 warnings signs? The President and Vice President go before the 9/11 Commission. Tonight, what they were asked and how they answered.”

After Roberts’ opening piece on the commission interviewing Bush and Cheney, which ended with the above-quoted recitation of what Bremer said three years ago, Rather delivered this haughty sermon:
“You may want to note that some of the families of the 9/11 victims point out that it was only under pressure that President Bush finally agreed to the formation of the independent commission and only under pressure that he finally appeared before it today -- under his ground rules, on his ground. At the President’s insistence, it was a joint appearance with the Vice President behind the closed doors of the Oval Office and there was no audio or video recording and no full written transcript.”

(Contrast that with how on April 8 Rather described Bill Clinton’s appearance before the panel, in the afternoon of the day they heard public testimony from Condoleezza Rice: “The 9-11 Commission also met in private today, taking testimony from former President Bill Clinton behind closed doors for more than three hours. In a statement, the panel said the former President was, and I quote, 'forthcoming and responsive’ to its questions but gave no other details.”)

Over on Thursday’s NBC Nightly News, in a piece which also aired on The News on CNBC and MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann, David Gregory concluded his story on the commission’s interview of Bush and Cheney: “And in a rebuke to his own Justice Department, today the President opened the session with the commission by criticizing Attorney General Ashcroft for his attacks on Democratic commissioner Jamie Gorelick. Aides said later the President does not approve of pointing fingers.”

Anchor Tom Brokaw then gave much more time to Bremer’s old comments: “There are new reports tonight that before he went to work for the White House, the Bush administration’s top man in Iraq, Ambassador Paul Jerry Bremer, was sharply critical of the administration’s efforts against terror. In a speech just seven months before the 9/11 attacks, Bremer said, quote, 'The new administration,’ that would be the President Bush administration, 'seems to be paying no attention to the problem of terrorism. What they will do is stagger along until there is a major incident and then suddenly say, 'Oh my God, shouldn’t we be organized to deal with this?’ They have been given a window of opportunity with very little terrorism now, and they’re not taking advantage of it,’ end of quote, Ambassador Paul Jerry Bremer.”

(Thursday’s NBC Nightly News also ran a piece which undermined Dick Clarke’s claim that high-level White House meetings in the Clinton years led to the capture of the Millennium bomber on the Canadian border with the U.S. Brokaw set up a story: “And we’ve learned more about that close call on the eve of the Millennium when a potential terrorist was intercepted coming across the Canadian border apparently headed for Los Angeles Airport. The Clinton administration was on high alert for terrorism, but, as NBC’s chief investigative correspondent Lisa Myers has learned, the real hero that New Year’s Eve 1999 was a woman acting on her own instincts, not instructions from Washington.”)

ABC’s World News Tonight didn’t mention Bremer and Terry Moran was the only broadcast network reporter to point out how two commission member walked out early from the long-scheduled session with the President and Vice President.

Before getting to that event, Moran cited the Gorelick flap: “Mr. Bush also offered an apology to one panel member, Jamie Gorelick, in an extraordinary rebuke of his Attorney General John Ashcroft. Ashcroft’s Justice Department released documents last night on its Web site aimed at showing that Gorelick, while in the Clinton administration’s Justice Department, hampered information sharing between the FBI and the CIA.”
Scott McClellan, at the daily White House press briefing: “That’s what the Justice Department did. We were not involved in it and I think the President was disappointed about that.”
Moran: “One final note: The President and the Vice President cleared three-and-a-half hours out of their schedule to answer the commission’s questions, but two members of the panel actually left more than an hour early. Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton said he had a luncheon with the Canadien Prime Minister and Senator Bob Kerrey, Peter, said he had a meeting on Capitol Hill.”

But Kerrey had the time on Monday to appear on Comedy Central’s Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Later, on CNN’s NewsNight, John King raised the Gorelick issue: “Congressional Republicans already say Democrats on the 9/11 panel are overly partisan and just Wednesday the Bush Justice Department released documents Republicans say show commission member Jamie Gorelick made it tougher to track down terrorists when she worked in the Clinton administration. But so eager was the President to stress cooperation that the White House publicly rebuked its own Justice Department for making those documents public and Mr. Bush began the Oval Office meeting by telling Gorelick and other commission members he was disappointed and that he wanted no part of the finger-pointing.”

Earlier Thursday, CNN’s Inside Politics focused on the document release instead of their content as Dana Bash explained: “It was really an extraordinary development. We had from the White House podium the White House spokesman essentially saying that the president admonished his own Attorney General over that issue, and did he so in the private meeting with the commissioners earlier today.
“Now, the story essentially is that the Justice Department did release on its Web site some documents that they say further proves that Jamie Gorelick, who of course is now a commissioner, was the Deputy Attorney General, was supportive of the idea of separating law enforcement from intelligence. That is something that the administration says was a big problem leading up to 9/11.
“Today, what the White House spokesman did was he essentially said that the President started his meeting with the commissioners not by an opening statement, but by saying that he was disappointed that this happened, and that he expressed his displeasure with it, because he said he does not want the finger pointing to go on. As you mentioned, a big question has been whether or not this commission has been too partisan. The President, and then, of course, his spokesman, making it very clear publicly that they don't want to look like they're involved in any partisanship, at least publicly.”

FNC on Wednesday actually outlined how the memos which were released showed how federal prosecutors, including the Clinton-appointed U.S. Attorney for Southern New York, Mary Jo White, thought Gorelick’s guidelines went beyond the law and would hinder efforts to stop terrorism.

FNC’s Major Garrett began his April 28 story on Special Report with Brit Hume: “Despite public comments to the contrary, 9/11 commissioner Jamie Gorelick was heavily involved in the Clinton-era policy that heightened the bureaucratic wall separating criminal prosecutions from terrorism investigations. Justice Department documents released today, and given to the 9/11 Commission Tuesday, show Gorelick signing off on the new policy and rejecting criticism from U.S. prosecutors, who feared it could undermine future efforts to stop terrorist attacks.
“Some of the sharpest criticism, the documents show, came from Mary Joe White, former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. White's office prosecuted the terrorists behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and also indicted Usama bin Laden for the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa. White wrote Attorney General Janet Reno on June 13, 1995 responding to the new policy.
[with text on screen] “Quote, 'It is hard to be totally comfortable with instructions to the FBI prohibiting contact with the United States Attorney's Offices when such prohibitions are not legally required.’ White also wrote that the new policy could leave U.S. Attorney's Offices blind to ongoing terror investigations and could create arbitrary lines of division. Quote, 'The most effective way to combat terrorism is with few as labels and walls as possible so that wherever permissible, the right and left hands are communicating.’
“Top Gorelick aide, Michael Vatis, wrote Gorelick and Janet Reno suggesting they reject White's request that U.S. Attorney's Offices, such as her's, be notified of ongoing terrorism investigations from the outset. Vatis also wrote that White's request seemed to seek special treatment for her office. [July 14, 1995 memo from Michael Vatis, Deputy Director of the Executive Office for National Security] Quote, 'We simply cannot write into the procedures that we will treat some USAOs (U.S. Attorney’s Offices) differently from others.’"
“Gorelick reviewed the Vatis memo and sent her handwritten approval to Reno in this memo, which reads, [shot of handwritten memo overlaid with text] 'To the A.G. -- I have reviewed and concur in the Vatis/Garland recommendations for the reasons put forth in the Vatis memo.’
“Meanwhile, President Bush said today he looked forward to his joint appearance with Vice President Cheney Thursday before the 9/11 Commission.
Bush: “And I look forward to the discussion. I look forward to giving the commissioners a chance to question both of us.”
Garrett: “That process will occur in the Oval Office tomorrow morning. The full 9/11 Commission, the president and the vice president will meet there, answer questions and discuss all the issues relevant to 9/11. Meanwhile, 13 Republican senators today, asked the 9/11 Commission to reconsider its decision not to call Gorelick to testify publicly. The commission has interviewed Gorelick privately.”
“Now, Gorelick has denied enlarging or in any way heightening the so-called 'wall’ of separation between criminal and terrorist investigation. And her aides have accused Republicans of carrying out political attacks, they say, undermine the commission's work -- Brit.”

“Memos show Gorelick involvement in 'wall,'” read the headline over the April 29 front page Washington Times article by reporters Charles Hurt and Stephen Dinan. See: www.washtimes.com

For a 29-page PDF of the memos between Gorelick, Vatis and White: www.justice.gov

For Ashcroft’s prepared statement in full, at the April 13 hearing during which he first revealed how Gorelick was the author of the “wall” memo, as posted by the AP: wid.ap.org

-- April 14: Media Avoidance of Holding Clinton’s Justice Department Accountable, part 1 of 2. During his appearance Tuesday before the 9-11 Commission, Attorney General John Ashcroft pointed out how the Clinton Justice Department, in a 1995 memorandum written by then-Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, now a member of the commission, imposed a systemic impediment to fighting terrorism by going beyond what the law required to bar the CIA from sharing information with the FBI about terror suspects inside the United States. The ABC, CBS and CNN evening newscasts on Tuesday all failed to mention the Gorelick memo as the networks chose instead to stress accusations about Ashcroft’s supposed lack of interest in terrorism in the few months before September 11, 2001. See: www.mediaresearch.org

-- April 14: Media Avoidance of Holding Clinton’s Justice Department Accountable, part 2 of 2. In the morning, as in the evening, the networks focused on making John Ashcroft culpable over any attention to the roles of Jamie Gorelick or Janet Reno, who was set to also appear at the Tuesday hearing. Gorelick, the author of the 1995 memo which established barriers to the CIA informing the FBI of terrorists inside the U.S., appeared on Tuesday’s Good Morning America. But Charles Gibson didn’t ask her a thing about Reno’s policies or her record. No, he cued her up to castigate Ashcroft: “There are reports that John Ashcroft, who will testify today, the Attorney General, is harshly criticized in the draft reports from the commission for inattention to terrorism and terrorist threats in the summer of 2001. True?” She agreed. www.mediaresearch.org

-- April 15: Attorney General John Ashcroft’s revelation, at the 9-11 Commission hearing on Tuesday, that commission member Jamie Gorelick, as Deputy Attorney General under Janet Reno, was the author of a 1995 memo which imposed a systemic impediment to fighting terrorism by going beyond what the law required to bar the CIA from sharing information with the FBI about terror suspects inside the United States, got some limited attention Wednesday after largely being ignored in Tuesday coverage. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Reports and NewsNight did raise Gorelick’s role, as did CBS’s Early Show, but ABC did all it could to ignore it and/or discredit the charge. Diane Sawyer treated charges against Ashcroft as the big news of the day and didn’t utter Gorelick’s name when she raised Ashcroft’s charge against Gorelick. On Nightline, Michel Martin undercut Ashcroft’s point by couching it as “partisan.” See: www.mediaresearch.org

-- April 20: Only when 9-11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick supposedly became the victim of right-wing hate did ABC’s World News Tonight bother to get around to informing its viewers of her 1995 memo, as Deputy Attorney General, mandating that the CIA not share with the FBI information about terrorists. At last Tuesday’s 9-11 Commission hearing, Attorney General John Ashcroft declassified Gorelick’s memo in which she herself conceded the guidelines she was imposing “go beyond what is legally required.” But that night, World News Tonight ignored the revelation and focused instead on complaints Ashcroft didn’t care about terrorism. www.mediaresearch.org

FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, JAN. 14, 1994

(BY L. PAUL BREMER III)

When he meets with Syrian President Hafez Assad on Sunday in Geneva. President Clinton will have a lot to talk about. The temptation will be for him to concentrate on the Middle East peace process. That will be Mr. Assad's preference. But global terrorism should be high on Mr. Clinton's list. For while there has been a relative decline in anti-American terrorism, the world-wide terrorist infrastructure, supported by states such as Syria, Libya and Iran, is alive and well.

The Clinton administration has neglected the terrorist threat, with our public officials paying only lip service to the problem. The State Department office charged with conducting counterterrorist policy has been downgraded and gutted. It has lost 40% of its staff--a curious phenomenon when last year's bombing of the World Trade Center underscored the threat of Mideast terrorism. For many of us who have been involved in the struggle against terrorism, this is ominous. In the past, progress in the fight against terrorism depended on vigorous, visible and courageous U.S. leadership. Without such leadership now, we will soon lose more American lives.

The meeting with Mr. Assad provides Mr. Clinton an opportunity to talk straight and tough to one of the most visible terrorist leaders--the only one with whom we have diplomatic relations. That would signal to Mr. Assad and the world that the U.S. is once again serious about the fight.

Syria continues to play congenial host to numerous radical terrorist groups. More than a dozen terrorist training camps, complete with shooting ranges, obstacle courses and dummy houses for bombing practice, still operate freely in Lebanon under the protective eye of the Syrian Army. Our government knows they are there: the Syrian government knows they are there. Yet despite repeated requests by previous American administrations, Mr. Assad does nothing.

Nor has Libya mended its ways. In December, Col. Moammar Gadhafi hosted an international terrorist gathering attended by radical Palestinian and other outlaw groups. Not since Joseph Stalin's last cabinet meeting has there been such a gathering of unsavory characters. Dozens of terrorist groups still have large modern training camps throughout Libya. Years of diplomatic efforts and flaccid economic sanctions have failed to get the Libyan leader to turn over the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing suspects.

Meanwhile, under its so-called moderate president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran murders its opponents wherever it can hunt them down. The government recently reconfirmed its death sentence against author Salman Rushdie. Iran continues to support the extremist terrorist movement Hezboliah, responsible for kidnapping Americans in Lebanon, and also backs radical groups in Sudan and Algeria.

Our allies prop up and appease Iran's extremist theocracy. Over the past five years, Germany's exports to Iran have quintupled and Japan's have more than tripled. Two weeks ago, the French government returned to Iran two Iranian terrorists arrested for murdering a regime opponent in Switzerland, callously breaking Paris's promise to extradite the suspects to Switzerland.

In all three cases--Syria, Libya and Iran--strong American leadership against terrorist networks is urgently needed.

Mr. Assad probably calculates that America is eager to involve Syria in the peace process that it will ignore his support of terrorism. But Mr. Clinton is in a stronger negotiating position than previous U.S. presidents who have tried to wrestle with Mr. Assad. The weakened Assad government, no longer under Soviet sponsorship, needs Western credits and economic assistance.

Mr. Clinton should insist that Syria will never enjoy normal relations with Washington until Damascus clearly and publicly renounces terrorism. Moreover, Mr. Clinton should demand that Syria begin expelling the terrorists living in Syria and closing down terrorist training camps.

The Syrian leader may assert that Damascus hasn't directly engaged in terrorism for several years and that it has helped restrain the activities of the groups under its control. Mr. Clinton should remind him that at least two of these Damascus-based groups have publicly acknowledged responsibility for terrorist attacks killing Israeli civilians in the past three months--the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.

With respect to Libya, the U.S. should move to expand international sanctions against Tripoli. Here, too, our objectives should be bold--a formal reunification of terrorism by Col. Qadhafi, the extradition of the Pan Am suspects, and the expulsion of all terrorist groups from Libya. We must get action, not promises, from him.

Ninety-eight percent of Libya's foreign exchange comes from oil, with Germany, Italy and Spain purchasing two-thirds of it. Now would be a good time to impose a complete oil embargo on Libya, since the market is in a glut. Sales lost by Libya could be made up by friendly nations such as Saudi Arabia. Kuwait and Venezuela.

If a complete embargo against Libya is politically unfeasible, our government should insist that the U.N. Security Council impose on Libya a system similar to that imposed on Iraq. All proceeds from Libyan oil sales could be put into a U.N. administered escrow account, to be used to pay families of terrorism victims and to repay Libyan debts.

Concerning Iran, we must tell our Western allies that we abhor their financial dealings with the murderous regime in Tehran. The timing is good because Iran's economy is a shambles. It cannot pay its debts and, without the support of West European credit agencies, it faces default. The West holds the key to the financial relief of Iran. That support should not be forthcoming.

These are hard messages and hard measures, but such language is the only language terrorists understand. Our experience over the past decade makes clear that without a resolute push from top U.S. officials, counterterrorist policies will not be effective.

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