Freeh: Gorelick Ignored Terror Warnings

NewsMax.com ^ | 4/12/04 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[kattracks]

In her first year as Deputy U.S. Attorney General in the Clinton administration, Sept. 11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick was warned that lax U.S. immigration policies made the U.S. a tempting target for terrorists, former FBI Director Louis Freeh revealed on Monday, suggesting that Gorelick did little to remedy the situation.

"Protecting our homeland from attacks by foreign terrorists had long been the FBI's priority," said Freeh, in a lengthy Wall Street Journal op-ed piece.

"Back in September 1994, I recommended to Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick that the DoJ strengthen investigative powers against suspected 'undesirable aliens,' accelerating deportation appeal proceedings and limiting U.S. participation in a visa waiver pilot program under which 9.5 million foreigners entered the U.S. in 1994."

Freeh that he also recommended "that we include provisions for the detention and removal of undesirable aliens, under a special, closed-court procedure."

"I also criticized alien deportation appeal procedures which often took years to conclude. Finally, I recommended legislation to provide the FBI with roving wiretap authority to investigate terrorist activities in the U.S."

But if Gorelick took Freeh's warnings seriously, she didn't make much headway with her superiors.

By 1996, under the Clinton administration's Citizenship USA program, thousands of criminal suspects were rushed through the naturalization process without proper background checks in order to get them on the voting roles on time for that year's presidential election.

According to former Justice Department investigator David Schippers, under the accelerated procedures, the U.S. was swarmed with:

• More than 75,000 new citizens who had arrest records when they applied.

• An additional 115,000 citizens whose fingerprints were unclassifiable for various technical reasons and we're never resubmitted.

• Another 61,000 people who were given citizenship with no fingerprints submitted at all.

At least one new citizen was already in jail by the time he was naturalized under the Clinton administration program.

According to Schippers's 1999 book, "Sell Out," Jamie Gorelick was tasked with expediting the new rules under which criminal background checks were suspended for new immigrants.

[Steve_Seattle]

To finish my point: If George Bush got someone's name wrong, we would never hear the end of it - just more evidence that Bush is "stupid." But Bob Kerrey calling Condi Rice "Dr. Clarke" several times during last week's hearings was pretty much covered up by the press. And if Bush called our army a "Christian" army, as did Kerrey, it would be negative headlines against Bush for a week, plus innumerable editorials blasting his "insensitivity." But Kerrey's comment was largely ignored; to the extent it was noticed, it was used against Bush.

[SuziQ]

My, my. Little Miss Gorelick and her smug self questioning Condi Rice last week had some questionable decisions in her past as well. I'd like to see the memos that she sent to HER superiors informing them of this threat. Since she's so big into declassifying memos from the Bush administration, we should see some from x42's days in office!

[blake6900]

The very fact that Gorelick and Ben Veniste are even on the 911 Commission throws the whole concept of it being "bi-partisan" right in the toilet. Both have political axes to grind. In Gorelick's case, she was much too involved to be objective. I wonder how receptive the Democrats would have been to the idea of Republican insistence that someone like Lawrence Eagleberger be put on the commission.

[Jasper]

A 'chickens coming home to roost' BUMP TO THE TOP.

Great post kattracks!

Wonder if there is any possibility that Gorelick could be compelled to testify under oath, in public.(yeah right)

/jasper

[jimbo123]

http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/contact.htm

Contact Us

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
301 7th Street, SW
Room 5125
Washington, DC 20407

Washington Office*
Tel: (202) 331-4060
Fax: (202) 296-5545 info@9-11Commission.gov

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I think Dashcle appointed many of the DemonicRats!

[Xenalyte]

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like if I had either "gore" or "lick" in my surname, I'd change it pronto.

[ItsForTheChildren]

Pass the popcorn, please.

[Wolfstar]

Will any of the Republican committee members go here during Freeh's testimony? I won't hold my breath.

They are the weakest bunch I have ever seen on one of these commissions — and I have been a political junkie for the better part of 30 years. The best analogy I can think of is that the Republicans on the commission are like a neighborhood sandlot football team up against the Super Bowl champions. No contest.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Dasshole did it!

[joyce11111]

WOW.....what a relief to hear that news from L. Freeh.
Seems like all of media is piling on W...now some relief.
Wonder what that woman will do to counter that accusation!

[thoughtomator]

If you check the archives on "9/11 commission", some of the earliest stories are about Kissinger and Mitchell resigning from the commission, the latter at least due to a "conflict of interest"... yet Kean, with a big conflict of interest of his own, is chair, and the Democrat side of the commission (and let's face it, there may not be a GOP side to the commission but there is definitely a Democrat side) is a bunch of people whose reputations are personally on the line, or close associates of people whose reputations are on the line.

Gorelick, Ben-Veniste, Kerrey... come on, this is ridiculous!

[Exit148]

Ms. Gorelick should be questioned BY the 9/11 Commission.

[sgtbono2002]

The 911 Commission is a National Frickin disgrace. This HAS to be brought out. Where are the Republicans, Geez we need a third party. a party with some courage or this country is going dowm the tubes.The Republicans havent the courage to stand up to the lying sacks of crap coming out of Massachusetts and other liberal parts of this country.

[Tribune7]

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like if I had either "gore" or "lick" in my surname, I'd change it pronto

Yeah, I saw it and started cooking up all sorts of Beavis & Butthead type jokes. As understand it, it's pronounced Gor-AL-ick.

[muleskinner]

The lib/democrats will answer that most of the hi-jackers didn't enter the country until sometime in 2001. So it just can't be Clinton/Gorelick's fault.
I heard that over the weekend, is that right?
Atta and the bald headed Frenchie - Mow-sow-wee (phonetic spelling) - may have been in the U.S. before than.

[nutmeg]

ping!

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.

[Steve_Seattle]

"Ms. Gorelick should be questioned BY the 9/11 Commission."

So should Ben-Veniste. His attempt to create the impression that that August 6th memo contained a specific threat about 9-11 - when he knew it didn't - should have gotten him kicked off the commission. Plus, he was badgering Rice, trying to set her up like a prosecutor would set up a criminal defendant, by not allowing her to give complete and nuanced replies to his questions.

[BlueAngel]

Dasshole did it!

Now, the Republicans need to undo it or at least highlight her questionable decisions in the Clinton administration. They can't wait for the lib media to do it.

[The South Texan]

Excellent article in today's National Reveiw Online that goes along with the above article about the clueless Gorelick.


Wrong Side of the Table
Jamie Gorelick, badly cast.

By Ethan Wallison

The activities of the 9/11 commission remind us that official Washington can be sorted by degrees of culpability. It is not to be cynical to suggest that what passes for inquest in the capital is often an elaborate effort to find a just dispensation of blame. How outcomes are received by the public mostly depends on whether an investigative panel succeeds at preserving the appearance of "independence," or at least "balance."



Yet, by some trick of fortune, Jamie Gorelick, a former deputy attorney general under President Clinton, is right now in the position of asking the questions, not answering them.

Gorelick, a key political ally of Al Gore who recently held a patronage position at Fannie Mae, is an exemplar of a certain kind of Washington ideal: the party mandarin who reaps the rewards of loyal service. As is the case with Richard Ben-Veniste, a Watergate prosecutor, Democrats routinely short-list Gorelick whenever they seek a reasonably tenacious partisan for an investigative panel. That in itself does not make Gorelick incapable of objectivity in the matter at hand. But whether her conclusions can be accepted ultimately will depend on whether one believes she has been able to keep an open mind about matters in which her own actions are at issue.

On Tuesday, former attorney general Janet Reno, under whom Gorelick served for three years beginning in 1994, testifies in open session. The questioning can reasonably be expected to focus on steps taken (or not taken) at the Justice Department in the wake of the first World Trade Center attack in 1993 and the 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City — the worst incidents of terrorism inside the United States before the Sept. 11 hijackings. Shouldn't Gorelick provide the commission — and the public — with answers on these topics as well? There is something absurd about the notion that, rather than testifying, Gorelick will instead be asking Reno for information. Are there any questions she can ask to which she does not already have the answer? Gorelick's role with the commission deprives the inquiry of a potentially valuable source of agreement or disagreement with the attorney general's testimony.

Consider one theme that has emerged from the hearings to date: the hapless condition of the FBI's antiterror efforts before the 9/11 attacks. If the attacks in New York and Oklahoma City amounted to failures for the FBI, what steps did Gorelick and other top officials at Justice, of which the agency is a part, take to defend against the next instance? Why did it take 9/11 to shift the FBI's emphasis from enforcement to prevention? Did the poor relationship between Reno and FBI director Louis Freeh contribute to failures to restructure the FBI? Were any steps taken after the 1993 attacks to remove barriers that thwarted useful coordination between the FBI and the CIA?

The drift of the hearings to date has suggested that these questions cut to the heart of the inquiry. Gorelick herself seemed to affirm this when she questioned Condoleezza Rice last Thursday. The commissioner pointed to a report from 2001 that indicated, in her own words, that "we have big systemic problems. The FBI doesn't work the way it should, and it doesn't communicate with the intelligence community." In the ensuing dialogue, Rice seemed to implicate Gorelick in the allegation.

Gorelick: Now, you have said that your policy review was meant to be comprehensive. You took your time because you wanted to get at the hard issues and have a hard-hitting, comprehensive policy. And yet there is nothing in [the policy review] about the vast domestic landscape that we were all warned needed so much attention. Can you give me the answer to the question why?

Rice: I would ask the following. We were there for 233 days. There had been a recognition for a number of years before — after the '93 bombing, and certainly after the [thwarted] millennium [attack in Los Angeles] — that there were challenges...inside the United States, and that there were challenges concerning our domestic agencies and the challenges concerning the FBI and the CIA. We were in office 233 days. It's absolutely the case that we did not begin structural reform at the FBI. [Emphasis mine].

It bears mentioning here that the reforms that were finally enacted in the wake of the 9/11 attacks — as embodied in the Patriot Act — have emerged as a central element of the Democratic party's overall indictment of the Bush administration. (Senator John Kerry, the party's nominee-presumptive for president, has disavowed his own vote for the law on grounds that it was wrongly "implemented" and has been used to erode civil liberties.)

But the larger point is that no one began "structural reform" at the investigative agency before 9/11, though the problems had indeed been apparent for some time — certainly since the 1993 attack, which exposed core weaknesses in the sharing of domestic and foreign intelligence. Few people are better situated to explain these failures than Gorelick. But she happens to be on the wrong side of the witness table.

— Ethan Wallison is White House correspondent for Roll Call.