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
From the Captains Quarter:
Commission: Able Danger Only Told Us About Atta
************************************************
August 12......
The AP reports tonight that 9/11 Commission co-chairs Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton have changed their story yet again. Now the two say in a joint statement to the press that they do recall hearing that Able Danger had identified Atta, two days after Hamilton categorically denied it -- and for a man who had supposedly never heard of Able Danger, Hamilton's recall of detail of the briefing appears impressive (via Tom Maguire):
iFRTV could addict yet another 50 million as we are addicted.
I say no. People must be allowed to go to work and raise families and income. Nationwide freeping probably is not a good thing. SOMEBODY had to produce.
We must remain in the shadows.
Awwwww come on. Democrats have been on the gov't teat for decades now. Let some of us who work our asses off with two jobs or who both parents work to support the rest of America have two years off from what Hillary wants to charge us.
I don't necessarily think the "men" will be GOP. After all, there will be a lot of Zell Miller types who will step up now .. and take back the party.
But .. if we expect certain things from the GOP - then we need to get our emails humming and our phones ringing and let them know exactly what we expect them to do.
Yeah, Brian Wilson on FOX made some comment about the media not having any news .. boy did I give him an earful.
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SAVAGE!
I like Mike.
Click the picture...
The question I wanna know is...why was the CIA involved with the investigation of TWA 800????....
On his last day in office, Beelzebubba said something like 'it's been a great ride". Almost like the country was his whore.
Probably yes, since denial is one way some people go through life. Since the Dems are "for the people" and they "care" the actual effects of their policies do not seem to matter.
Did x43 really say, "I've had the most fun 8 years"? I recall how W was ridiculed for being a "frat boy." If he was, it was while he was in college, not when he was President of the United States!
They are all 3 part of the "Inside the Beltway/Washington DC" Private "Club" now.
Oh really!? And how would you define the war on terror and non-stop RAT defeats if not hardball?
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. . . .
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.
I agree; I can only hope that some of the idiots in NY who keep voting for her wake up and smell the coffee.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1225164/posts
Jamie Gorelick received $779,625 in improper bonus from Fannie Mae
OFHEO ^ | September 22, 2004 | Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight
Posted on 09/23/2004 3:31:49 PM PDT by Dems_R_Losers
Federal regulator OFHEO yesterday released a damning report on accounting irregularities at mortgage finance giant Fannie Mae. One critical finding was that in 1998, Fannie misstated expenses in order to meet earnings targets that triggered huge executive bonuses. The report states:
1998 Salary and Bonus of Senior Fannie Mae Executives
Officer Title Salary AIP Award/Bonus
James A. Johnson Chairman and CEO $966,000 $1,932,000
Franklin D. Raines Chairman and CEO Designate $526,154 $1,109,589
Lawrence M. Small President and COO $783,839 $1,108,259
Jamie Gorelick Vice-Chairman $567,000 $779,625
J. Timothy Howard EVP and CFO $395,000 $493,750
Robert J. Levin EVP, Housing and Comm. Develop. $395,000 $493,750
Exactly ... and this will all come out
None of this is new information, why has it taken so long to come to the forefront, and why now?
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