Gorelick 'MemoGate': It Just Got Worse

ChronWatch ^ | 8/12/05 | Gregory Borse

[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

[Polybius]

and the MSM says.....(sounds of crickets chirping in the silence)

I propose that we change the term MSM (Mainstream Media) to the more accurate LNM (Liberal News Media).

There is nothing "Mainstream" about their liberal bias and they are no longer the only show in town.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

...created ‘a roadblock’ to the investigation of illegal Chinese donations to the Democratic National Committee...

DING! DING! We have a winner. The changes were to cover up Clintonian corruption.

[SierraWasp]

"Talked about that "wall thing" and stuff."

Geeze! If they were from southern Joisey, they coulda said "wall thang" an stuff like dat!!!

[SierraWasp]

Hey sfwarrior! Did you see this???

[nopardons]

bttt

[antceecee]

DRUDGE use to be the cutting edge. I guess now he's all about fluff and nonsense.

[nopardons]

FREEPERS had it more or less all figured out years ago.

Go look at Alamo-girl and backhoe's files.

Rush, Sean, and our own Mark Levin have been all over this, for days, on their radio shows. Rush said today, that he was putting up tons of stuff on his website. I haven't been there to look ( I have FR, who needs Rush? ), but that is what he said he was going to do.

[toomanygrasshoppers]

Guess I was a little slow on the up-take.

[nopardons]

Well, you're newish.

Before a newbie is allowed to post here, they all should be forced to read all of FR's archives. That would help a lot. :-)

[Shortstop7]

Same thing I thought when I was reading the story. Typical of the Clintons.

I'm frustrated with everyone here saying the MSM won't pick up the story and that will be the end of it.

Why does that have to be the end of it? Why can't we ALL send out emails to the MSM...demanding they pick up and follow through on this story?

Or is that a useless effort?

[Mia T]

We have to clean house. bump

post-911, we don't have the luxury to elect coddled corrupt careerists.

the 911 commission: the DC mutual protection racket writ large.

"While the Republicans are (place some nasty verb here), a clinton is working hard for the people"


HILLARY'S TRIPLE PLAY
the clinton putsch + filegate + the gorelick wall

[SierraWasp]

This was in the San Francisco Chronicle! Isn't that old media? They sure aren't burying it with this article, right?

[dyed_in_the_wool]

allowed the rats to stack the staff with rat operatives.

Including Jamie Gorelick herself.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

They'll quit just as soon as they've helped the bolsheviks destroy this nation.

There's a book , don't know if you have heard of it:

*************************************************

Unholy Alliance : Radical Islam and the American Left (Hardcover)
by David Horowitz

307 of 368 people found the following review helpful:Vastly Illuminating, September 25, 2004

Reviewer:

Kat Bakhu (Albuquerque, NM United States) - See all my reviews

I had long wondered why people on the Left had the propensity to speak more positively about people who would slit their throats than they do about their own country, which affords them more freedom and opportunity than anywhere else. David Horowitz has answered that question thoroughly and convincingly in his Unholy Alliance. Where I felt bewildered and confused, I now feel crystal clear. Unholy Alliance is such a great book.

It begins with the leftist movements at the beginning of the 20th Century, and works its way up to the present day, exploring the anti-American attitude of these movements in detail. Horowitz shows that the enemies of the US back then are largely the same group today, operating under the same misperceptions, making the same mistakes, and pursuing the same impossible utopia.

Individual chapters are included on the Patriot Act (I was persuaded that it is a GOOD thing); the democratic flip-flop on Iraq once G.W. Bush implemented what they agreed with Clinton needed to be done; the driving components of the current anti-war movement; as well as chapters on individual personalities who are major spokespeople of the Left. Horowitz covers a lot of ground, and he covers it concisely and clearly. Unholy Alliance is richly informative without ever being boring or plodding.

This book is so illuminating that I simply cannot do justice to it here. I love people who reason so clearly that they help me get my own reasoning clear. Horowitz is just that type of person! In the terrain of mindless clichés (no-blood-for-oil, etc.), he is a breath of real fresh air.

[Stellar Dendrite]

David Horowitz is a hero of mine. He and Gary Aldrich really opened my eyes.

The definitive guide to the left and their goals:

Communist goals from the 1963 congressional record
http://www.uhuh.com/nwo/communism/comgoals.htm

[Soul Seeker]

People said we should ignore the Swiftees and Dan Rather.

Ignore them. That attitude has never accomplished anything, it's the persistent that accomplish their goals more than not. If the cybersphere deems this to be important enough, it'll keep it front and center and build momentum. Eventually the outside is forced to acknowledge it when that happens. The question is how important does the net community believe this to be? Will they let it die or force it into the open?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I get the sneaking suspicion that the gates are ready to collapse and the pajamahadeen jihad is about to begin.

ROFL!!!

Let the JIHAD begin....we need a Westerized name for that........sort of like ....round up the posse....and mount up.....I like Westerns and Roy Rogers!!!!

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Oh, that is why that bitch from NY wants to be president so bad....

That would be the satanic lesbian whore of Babylon. Let's get the accolades straight.

[hosepipe]

Thats cool... but we cant even prosecute fully Sandy Burgular caught red handed and red faced.. Why did Clinton appoint Freeh the next day after Vince Foster anyway.?. Damage control?.. If Clinton appointed him, he obviously was up to no good.. And "our".. Unite'er and not a Divide'er kept most Clinton appointees on when he was inaugerated.. The Washington D.C. barrel is rank.. and ripe.. and quite squishy..

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Has Karl Rove been accused of breaking Jamie Gorelick's cover yet?