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
The woman set to head up any Pardongate prosecutions is a tenacious attorney who isn't afraid to step on a few toes.
Now lets be fair to the MSM. They are busy saving our National Security Agencies by pursuing Karl Rove, the traitor who broke the cover of Super Spy Valerie Plame. Why there is simply no room left in the news cycle for this trivial Gorelick stuff given their Ahab like pursuit of Rove.
What makes you think Fox is conservative?
The owner of Fox, Rupert Murdock, personally donated 50 thousand dollars to Gore in 2000 and gave zero dollars to Bush. Other members of Murdocks companies gave many more thousands to Gore.
The top officials in Murdocks Companies, including Fox gave tens of thousands of dollars to Kerry in 2004.
Just becuase Fox is not as liberal as CNN, does not mean they are conservative.
Roger Ailes who is head of Fox is a Republican.. But every one of his bosses are Liberals. When they tell him to follow the lefist line, he does so. If he did not he would be fired.
I think he meant that the oligarchy, consisting of 2 parties (Dims and Rinos) are benign to each other, and take turns in the power seat, with both sides agreeing to cover each other's a$$es when things like the 9-11 Commission convene.
thanks for noticing.....
He's going to go ape-sh*t after the break.
The man has a wonderful heart! I know he's a little hard to assimilate for some................ but he has great knowledge............... and great instincts and great and sweet love.
He loves this country.......... and loves................ and knows truth!!!!
She better get some 24/7 bodyguards, and quick!
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.
She's honest and tough.........(I believe)
And it is now more than clear that the 9-11 Commission was an elaborate cover-up scheme. Gorelick was certainly assigned to cover up PDD24 and her own malfeasance (conducted at Clinton's behest). Ben Venista was assiged to attack Bush -- as a diversion, with a potential fringe benefit of his loss in the 2004 election.
Looks like Sandy Burglar was tasked with cleansing damaging archive intel they forgot to purge during the Bush transition.
Clinton should be tried for treason...
I have no doubt that this is what it is all about-making it difficult to trace BJ's laundered Chicom contributions. But Bush and the rest of the gutless RINO's will let it lay there.
Savage is right, the people have nowhere to turn.
The MSM is scheduled to cover the Sheehan story.
ANY other stories do not bash Bush and therefore do not warrant airtime.
S.D. .... you are soooo right....
****
The old Dem./liberal/socialist media is America's most ruthless, relentless, and destructive enemy.
Does this Oct.2003 date and Berger's thief of doc.s from Archives in Fall (Oct.??) of 2003 fit together or Berger after something totally different?
Bet the DUmmies are all atitter with this one.
Michael's show is a repeat for today.
I have the rope and bigger oak trees.
LOL!
I think this more closely fits Savage's description of the "The Enemy Within".
"What makes you think Fox is conservative?"
Fox is NOT conservative, they're CNN-lite.
Hell, even DRUDGE doesnt have able danger on his site. Apparently HIV, Oil Prices and Courtney Love suicide rumors are more important.
Thank *God* for FR!
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