Free Republic

9/11 Probers Reject Claims on Lead Hijacker Investigators for the Sept. 11 commission have found no evidence to support allegations by a House Republican that lead hijacker Mohamed Atta was identified by a classified Pentagon program before the 2001 attacks, according to a commission statement issued last night. Commission leaders Thomas H. Kean (R) and Lee H. Hamilton (D) said in the joint statement that panel staff members have found no documents or other witnesses to back up claims made by a U.S. Navy officer, who told the commission staff in July 2004 that he recalled seeing Atta's name and...

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...