Replies

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2004_cr/s042804b.html

Congressional Record: April 28, 2004 (Senate)
Page S4482-S4483

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized under the previous order.

Mr. CORNYN. Thank you, Madam President.

The 9/11 Commission

Madam President, earlier, I spoke on the importance of the 9/11 Commission maintaining its credibility given the important mission that organization has undertaken to determine, first, a factual record of the events leading up to 9/11, and then to make recommendations to Congress and various Government agencies on how we can continue to protect our homeland against any further terrorist attacks on our own soil.

I spoke about the need of one of the Commissioners, Commissioner Jamie Gorelick, to provide information about her knowledge of relevant facts. She, of course, was Deputy Attorney General during the Clinton administration under Attorney General Janet Reno.

I also made one other point that I think bears repeating here now; that is, this is not about blame. The only person and the only entity to blame for the events of 9/11 are al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden. This is not about blaming the Clinton administration or the Bush administration. This is about getting to the facts. This is about getting good recommendations based on all the information and then
making the American people safer as a result.

On Monday, Senator Lindsey Graham and I asked the Justice Department to produce any documents they may have in their possession relating to Jamie Gorelick's involvement in establishing policies preventing the sharing of critical terrorism-related information between intelligence
and law enforcement officials.

It is the fact that those have now been made public and, indeed, posted on the Department of Justice's Web site at

www.usdoj.gov which brings me back to the Senate floor to briefly mention

why I think Ms. Gorelick's testimony is even more important to explaining what she did as a member of the Justice Department under Janet Reno to erect and buttress this wall that has been the subject of so much conversation and why it is so much more important that she do so because the 9/11 Commission's credibility is at stake.

Documents posted today on the Justice Department's Web site substantially discredit Ms. Gorelick's recent claims that, No. 1, she was not substantially involved in the development of the new information-sharing policy, and, No. 2, the Department's policies under the Clinton-Reno administration enhanced rather than restricted
information sharing.

Madam President, these documents--and they are not particularly lengthy, but they do raise significant questions about the decision of the Commission not to have Ms. Gorelick testify in public.

Indeed, the only testimony we know she has given has been in secret or in camera, to use the technical term. These documents make it even more important that we get her explanation for these apparent inconsistencies and
contradictions.

Indeed, the document that Attorney General Ashcroft declassified and released during the course of his testimony --giving his very powerful testimony about the erection and the buttressing of this wall that blinded American law enforcement and intelligence agencies from the threat of al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden--these new documents reveal,
indeed,

Ms. Gorelick did have a key role in establishing that policy, which was ultimately signed off on and approved by Attorney General Janet Reno; indeed, that she received and rejected in part and accepted in part recommendations made by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York with regard to this wall.

Specifically, Madam President, as you will recall, the first attack on American soil that al-Qaida administered was, in all likelihood, the World Trade Center bombing in 1993.

Indeed, the document that Attorney General Ashcroft released pointed out that Mary Jo White, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, was concerned about an
ongoing criminal investigation ``of certain terrorist acts, including the bombing of the World Trade Center,'' and that

``[d]uring the course of those investigations significant counterintelligence information [had] been developed related to the activities and plans of agents of foreign powers operating in [the United States] and overseas, including
previously unknown connections between separate terrorist groups.''

Well, in response to some draft proposals for establishing criteria for both law enforcement and intelligence, counterterrorism officials, Ms. Gorelick noted that the procedures that were adopted at her recommendation by the Justice Department under Attorney General Janet Reno went beyond what is legally required.

Indeed, I spoke earlier about the fact that the USA PATRIOT Act brought down that law that had been established both by this policy and, indeed, by policies that had
preceded it.

But it is important, in these new documents that have just been revealed today, in response to my request and Senator Graham's request, that there is, indeed, a memorandum by Mary Jo White dated June 13, 1995, in which she was given an opportunity to respond to the proposed procedures that have maintained and buttressed this wall that blinded America to this terrible threat.

http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/1995_wall.pdf

Office of the Deputy Attorney General

MEMORANDUM

TO. Mary Jo white United States AttorneySouthern District of New York

Louis Freeh, Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation

Richard Scruggs,
Counsel of Intelligence Policy and Review
Office of Intelligence Policy and Review

Jo Ann Harris, Assistant Attorney General
Criminal Division

FROM: Jamie S.Gorelick, Deputy Attorney General

RE: Instructions on Separation of Certain ForeignCounterintelligence and Criminal Investigations

(memo IS NOT DATED)

The United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and the FBI have been conducting criminal investigations of certain terrorist acts, including the bombingof the World Trade Center, and potential obstruction of the indicted case of United States v. Rahma et al.

(snip)

Foreign counterintelligence collected during the course of the FCI investigation will be disseminated pursuant to FBI guidelines and FISA.

If, in the case of the FCI investigation, facts or circumstances are developed that reasonably indicate that a significant federal crime has been, is being, or may be committed, the FBI and OIPR are each independently responsible for notifying the USAO and the Criminal Division.

Notice shall include the facts and circumstances developed during the FCI investigation that supplied the indication of significant federal criminal activity, whether or not such activity relatea to the indicted canes or criminal investigations referred to in subparagraph (2) above.

An Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) from the Southern District of New York who has knowledge of, but no active involvement in, the on-going criminal investigations, will continue to be assigned to work with OIPR and the FCI agents to review such foreign intelligence information to ensure that evidence that might be exculpatory to any defendants currently under indictment is promptly considered for dissemination to criminal investigative personnel, the USAO, and the Criminal Division.

This AUSA will also serve to ensure, in conjunction with the FBI and OIPR, that information which reasonably indicates that a significant federal crime has been, is being, or may be committed is appropriatelydisseminated to criminal investigative personnel, the USAO,and the Criminal Division pursuant to the procedures set forth above.

That AUSA will continue to be "walled off" from participation in the on-going criminal investigationsand cases and will continue to abide by all FISA dissemination provisions and guidelines.

Etc etc ... rest at links