I guess Ashcroft doesn't think blowhard Tom Kean's remark that people should just "BUTT OUT" should be obeyed.
GOOD FOR ASHCROFT!!
Had blowhard Tom Kean paid attention to the obvious - that Gorelick should have been on the other side of the dias, this might have come out earlier!!!
..."A 1995 memo authored by Commissioner Gorelick forbade CIA and FBI agents from freely exchanging information. She instituted rules (later made department policy) that separated criminal investigations from intelligence gathering -- even though, as she admitted in the memo, such rules went “beyond what is legally required.”
The new rules prohibited any “’proactive’ investigative efforts or technical coverages” of terrorist suspects on U.S. soil. In other words, under the Gorelick memo our law enforcement and intelligence agencies were prohibited from any undercover work related to terrorist suspects.
We cannot know the effect of Gorelick’s rules. It’s quite possible that they hampered the ability of U.S. intelligence agencies to communicate the identity of two of the 9/11 hijackers to law-enforcement agencies, even after they had entered the United States. And that, in turn, may have been a partial cause of the 9/11 attacks.
The only way for us to know, at this point, is to find out what the Justice Department meant by these rules -- and that means the Commission must ask Ms. Gorelick about her memorandum."