Posted on 08/12/2005 6:21:30 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
In March of 1995, Louis Freeh, then FBI Director, and Mary Jo White, the New York U.S. attorney investigating the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, received a directive written by Jamie Gorelick, President Clinton’s number two official in the Justice Department. That directive—which has come to be known as the “wall of separation” memo—ordered Freeh and White to “go beyond what is legally required” in following information-sharing procedures between intelligence agencies and agencies charged with criminal investigations of suspected terrorists. At issue, seemingly, was a White House concern to avoid “any risk of creating an unwarranted appearance” that the civil liberties of terrorism suspects were being undermined.
As has come to light in the past few days, the Gorelick Memo seems to be at the heart of the non-passing of information discovered by a counter-terrorism military operation known as “Able Danger” to the FBI that Mohammed Atta and three of the other 9/11 hi-jackers had set up an al-Queda cell in Brooklyn, New York, as early as a year prior to the 9/11 attacks. Furthermore, the information that White House or Department of Defense attorneys denied “Able Danger’s” request to give that information to the FBI was furnished to staff members of the Sept. 11 Commission—of which Jamie Gorelick was a sitting member—as early as October of 2003. But that information was not given to Commission members then and does not appear in the Commission’s final report.
As has been reported in the New York Post today, by Deborah Orin, and quoted in a story on NewsMax.com (go here), Mary Jo White wrote to the Justice Department about the Gorelick directive, complaining, “It is hard to be totally comfortable with the instructions to the FBI prohibiting contact with the United States’ Attorneys Office when such prohibitions are not legally required.” According to Orin in the Post account, White was so frustrated that she sent a second memo excoriating the Gorelick “wall of separation” as “hinder[ing] law enforcement,” saying that its prohibitions “could cost lives.”
The questions now are why did Commission staffers not inform the Sept. 11 Commission members of “Able Danger’s” October 2003 report of prior knowledge of an al-Queda cell in Brooklyn, New York a year before the 9/11 attacks? Why is Mary Jo White’s testimony in the Sept. 11 Commission investigation not included in the Commission’s final report? And, finally, why was the Gorelick directive ever written in the first place?
An article from FrontPageMag.com from May of 2004 may shed some light on the reasons for the Gorelick directive (go here). The story suggests strongly that the Clinton Administration worked strenuously, in 1995, to re-organize the ways in which intelligence agencies like the CIA and FBI were allowed to communicate with each other and with U.S. Attorneys Offices investigating foreign and domestic espionage cases and that the Gorelick Memo itself is an outgrowth of policies erected under Clinton’s “Presidential Decision Directive 24”:
“In April [2004], CNSNews.com staff writer Scott Wheeler reported that a senior U.S. government official and three other sources claimed that the 1995 memo written by Jamie Gorelick, . . . created ‘a roadblock’ to the investigation of illegal Chinese donations to the Democratic National Committee. But the picture is much bigger than that. The Gorelick memo, which blocked intelligence agents from sharing information that could have halted the September 11 hijacking plot, was only the mortar in a much larger maze of bureaucratic walls whose creation Gorelick personally oversaw.”
That maze includes FBI and CIA investigations into the leaking and/or theft of sensitive missile and nuclear information to the Chinese even as illegal donations to the Democratic National Committee were being traced to Bill Clinton’s old Arkansas friend, Johnny Chung. The bureaucratic nightmare created by PDD 24 effectively stalled these investigations until safely after the 1996 Presidential Election, and led to, among others, Wen Ho Lee and the Los Alamos National Laboratory espionage case. As Mary Jo White wrote in her letter of protest regarding the Gorelick directive, PDD 24’s “instructions leave entirely to OIPR [Office of Intelligence and Policy Review] and the (Justice Department) Criminal Division when, if ever, to contact affected U.S. attorneys on investigations including terrorism and espionage.” And whom did Clinton appoint to head up the OIPR? An old friend of Janet Reno’s from Florida, Richard Scruggs. So, as FrontPageMag pointed out, “for the first time in the history of the Justice Department,” a political appointee was “put in charge of the Office of Intelligence and Policy Review (OIPR). OIPR is the Justice Department agency in charge of requesting wiretap and surveillance authority for criminal and intelligence investigations on behalf of investigative agencies from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court.”
It must be noted that the Gorelick directive to Freeh and White explicitly mentions the FISA court and prohibits the sharing of information gathered by its investigative agencies with US Attorneys Offices.
The upshot of PDD 24 was that all investigations into espionage activity—including efforts by the CIA, FBI, and the United States Military counter-intelligence operations (like “Able Danger”)—were to be overseen and approved (or not approved) by political appointees that answered directly to a White House that had every reason prior to the 1996 Presidential Election for keeping those agencies from sharing information with each other or with US Attorneys Offices.
It looks like the non-sharing of the “Able Danger” information by staff members of the Sept. 11 Commission with Commission members themselves is much worse than simply an effort to shield Jamie Gorelick for some responsibility for the intelligence failures that, it is now clear, helped to make the 9/11 attacks possible. What is becoming increasingly obvious is that the Gorelick Memo itself was perhaps part of a much larger effort by the Clinton Administration to shield itself from investigations that would imply its complicity in the passing of sensitive military and nuclear intelligence to the Chinese in return for millions in illegal campaign donations in the run-up to the 1996 election.
Representative Weldon—can you spell “MemoGate”?
For a related story, go here:
http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=16180&catcode=13
Jamie Gorelick, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL !!
I agree.
"In April [2004], CNSNews.com staff writer Scott Wheeler reported that a senior U.S. government official and three other sources claimed that the 1995 memo written by Jamie Gorelick, . . . created 'a roadblock' to the investigation of illegal Chinese donations to the Democratic National Committee.
But the picture is much bigger than that. The Gorelick memo, which blocked intelligence agents from sharing information that could have halted the September 11 hijacking plot, was only the mortar in a much larger maze of bureaucratic walls whose creation Gorelick personally oversaw."
That maze includes FBI and CIA investigations into the leaking and/or theft of sensitive missile and nuclear information to the Chinese even as illegal donations to the Democratic National Committee were being traced to Bill Clinton's old Arkansas friend, Johnny Chung. The bureaucratic nightmare created by PDD 24 effectively stalled these investigations until safely after the 1996 Presidential Election...
Wasn't Algore working the phones and hip deep in these illegal Chinese donations to the DNC also??
This just makes me mad enough to chew up 16 penny nails and spit out a barbed wire fence.
I've been thinking to myself since this "Memogate" on Able Danger came up in the last couple of days...They keep saying Atta's Al Queda cell was the Brooklyn cell. But we all know Atta was in Florida going to flight school, not Brooklyn. What if Atta entered the US on a false passport at some unknown date and established himself in Brooklyn first, travelled outside the country and reentered using his own name when it was time to do the flight school thing. Does anyone know how many passports Atta had under different names and nationalities? He is supposed to be Egyptian, but when he tried to get the loan for the crop duster from the Dept of Ag and was turned down, the lady who interviewed him said he pointed at a picture of DC on the wall and said something like "How would Americans like that city bombed like his country had been bombed?" Maybe he was using an Iraqi or Palestinian passport at the time?
Say what? Do you mean Fourth Estate? (the MSM, in this case). Sorry! Spelling police again (but you did spell forth of state right).
Nope - not this time!
I've always thought it might have been what 9/11 actually became, but in the middle of a Presidential campaign, better to shoot down the plane before it hits the WTC, and messes up your lead in the polls.
Also remember the cockpit hijack tussel in the Egypt Air 990 flight (October, 1999) that happened off the coast of Maine that crashed into the sea. I'll bet that was a possible 9/11 style hijack attempt, which, like the 9-11 plane which crashed into Shanksville, PA became foiled through resistance or intervention.
No, troll, they aren't both the same. But since you can't see that, I suggest that you keep your stupidity hidden from view and stop posting. ;^)
Yes. It is clear that the ROOT CAUSE of the "intellegence failures" related to 9-11 was an unintended consequence of Clinton Admin corruption as around to his sellout of our commercial and national security to Communist China. This IMO qualifies Clinton for trial for high treason, and following conviction, death by hanging.
Second Amendment.
Since when do we follow directives from the RNC and/or the DNC ..??
Once again, the Clinton administration jeopardized national security so it could transfer nuke secrets to our enemies for cash.
If a REPUBLICAN administration had done this, the liberal media would be screaming impeachment, indictment, and execution. As they sould. But the fact they are silent now shows they are truly traitors themselves.
Oh, the balloons are floating. I watched last night as the WaPo pushed the hollow "unreliable source" excuse. The coupe de gras was when one of the Joisey Goils went on a radio program and tried, in vain, to defend Gore-lick. Talked about that "wall thing" and stuff.
The MSM is in full siege mode. Their Rove-Plame manufactured scandal was threatening to blow up in their faces, but then we got the Roberts nomination (with the lovely NARAL flame-out to go with, thank you very much), now this. I think the MSM is running out of ammo. I get the sneaking suspicion that the gates are ready to collapse and the pajamahadeen jihad is about to begin.
Crystal clear.
This IMO qualifies Clinton for trial for high treason, and following conviction, death by hanging.
That won't happen in this lifetime, of course; however, in the hereafter, he will be held to account. To those whom much is given, much is expected. Not all should strive to become leaders or teachers, as those in authority are held to a higher accounting for what they have done with their knowledge and power.
See this for some thoughts on new info about Atta's activities:
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/
And this on how Gorelick's 'wall' may have pervaded a lot more than the FBI and ensured that federal officials could not pursue Atta:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1462140/posts?page=86#86
This story will make my chest pains come back.
3,000 people died needlessly? 911 didn't have to happen?
The blood of these people is on the doorstep of Bill and Hillary Clinton.
I hate these people for their treason. They were supposed to be watching our back, instead they stabbed us in the back. (Maybe that will be the campaign theme aagainst Hillary)
I just wish W could fumigated the whole place (DC) sooner. It takes so long to get up to speed after an election and clear out all of the deep rat holes.
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