In my view one of the most important recent revelations regarding the memo is the fact that Ms Gorelick in probability lied when she stated in her op-ed piece that it was written to protect the prosecution in the two anti-terrorist trials at the time.
In a rebuttal former chief assistant U.S. attorney in NY Andrew C. McCarthy wrote (The Wall Truth: Gorelick provides the clearest proof yet that she should resign., Posted on 04/19/2004 9:57:46 AM EDT by xsysmgr):
By the time she penned her March 1995 memo, the first World Trade Center bombing prosecution had been over for a year and my case was in its third month of trial.
The only conceivable threat to eventual convictions would have been (a) if the prosecutors and agents in my case had learned information about defense strategy by virtue of the government's continuing investigation of some of our indicted defendants for possible new crimes; or (b) if the continuing investigation had turned up exculpatory information about the defendants in my case and I had not been told about it so I could disclose it. Far from being unique to national-security matters, that situation is a commonplace when the government deals with violent organizations (which tend to obstruct justice and routinely plot to kill or influence witnesses, prosecutors, and/or jurors, thus requiring continuing investigations even as already indicted cases proceed).
To avoid constitutional problems in such a situation, the government regularly assigns a prosecutor and agent who are not involved in the already indicted case to vet information from the continuing investigation before it is permitted to be communicated to agents and prosecutors on the indicted case. This way, the team on the indicted case learns only what it is allowed to know (viz., evidence of new crimes the defendants have committed), but not what it should not know (viz., defense strategy information and incriminating admissions about the indicted case made without the consent of counsel); and the government maintains the ability to reveal any exculpatory information (as federal law requires). As Gorelick's 1995 memorandum recounts, the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York had already made sure that was done in my case long before Gorelick's memo.
What remains is the very important question why she penned the memo at that time? That question Ms Gorelick should have to answer under oath.
ISTM that there's always the possiblity that "the wall" was crucial to protecting some "FOB" who would have been in a world of hurt if not for its protection. Of course, given Slick's nature, any protection extened to a "FOB" would likely have been done for the underlying goal of protecting Slick himself.
I wonder if his pal Marc Rich was up to his elbows in more than "oil for food"?
Of course, it might not be something like that. It might be something even worse. :)
Seriously, though, what do we know? It looks like "the wall" was maintained at all costs by the Clinton Regime. Presumably, if this is the case, it wasn't for no reason. And I can't bring myself to think that the reason was altruistic, i.e., "in the national interest", for two reasons. One, on face value, it seems counter to the national interest, and two, if there was a good reason to maintain it at all costs, surely someone would know what the reason was!
So, that IMO brings us back to Clinton, with the question being what was he using "the wall" to protect?
I agree. I was surprised to find the information on the newly released documents regarding the Gorelick memo buried in a story last Wednesday. It was from Fox News, and the headline and first part of the article was a preview of the Bush/Cheney meeting to take place the next day with the 9/11 commission. Then it went on to detail the records released that very day by the DOJ. I posted the article with a comment highlighting that new info re: Gorelick was in it and I noted it exposed her as lying in her WaPo op-ed. Yes, she did.