Jamie Gorelick On "The Wall"

9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick, wacked by John Ashcroft during last week's testimony, responds to the critics of "the Wall" separating domestic intelligence gathering from criminal investigations and prosecutions:

...we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives.

Oh, for heaven's sake, that's not it. Here we go:

...At last week's hearing, Attorney General John Ashcroft, facing criticism, asserted that "the single greatest structural cause for September 11 was the wall that segregated criminal investigators and intelligence agents" and that I built that wall through a March 1995 memo. This is simply not true.

First, I did not invent the "wall," which is not a wall but a set of procedures implementing a 1978 statute (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA) and federal court decisions interpreting it.

...Second, according to the FISA Court of Review, it was the justice departments under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush in the 1980s that began to read the statute as limiting the department's ability to obtain FISA orders if it intended to bring a criminal prosecution. The practice of prohibiting prosecutors from directing intelligence investigations was first put in place in those years as well.

...Third, Mr. Ashcroft's own deputy attorney general, Larry Thompson, formally reaffirmed the 1995 guidelines in an Aug. 6, 2001, memo addressed to the FBI and the Justice Department. Ashcroft has charged that the guidelines hampered the department's ability to pursue terrorists Zacarias Moussaoui, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi in August 2001, but his own department had endorsed those guidelines at the pivotal time.

She goes on, but I will not.

Comments

[Cecil Turner]

"You can't handle the truth!"

The President's weekly radio address tied it in with the Patriot Act: "The Patriot Act also marked a major shift in law enforcement priorities. We are no longer emphasizing only the investigation of past crimes, but also the prevention of future attacks." That's a fairly transparent slap at the previous FBI focus as criticized in the 9/11 staff statement: "The FBI took a traditional law enforcement approach to counterterrorism."

Gorelick's claim of being bound by past FISA legal interpretations of the legal limitations imposed by FISA is a bit hard to credit, especially since it's obvious from the 1995 memo that she intended to go past the legal requirements:
"These procedures, which go beyond what is legally required, will prevent any risk of creating an unwarranted appearance that FISA is being used to avoid procedural safeguards which could apply in a criminal investigation."

I've not seen the source documents of Larry Thompson's reaffirmation of her guidelines. But if she represented it accurately, I bet he'd like to have that one back.

[Tom Bowler]

I happened to catch an interview on TV yesterday with Howard Dean, in which he was asked about Gorelick's conflict of interest. He said he doesn't see one, and instead blamed Ashcroft for using it as an excuse to evade questions. I can't find a transcript anywhere, but I think it was on Fox. I'd like to hear someone ask John Kerry what he thinks of the Gorelick situation. He spent an hour on Meet the Press yesterday and, amazingly, the topic never came up.

I continue to be flabbergasted at the delicate treatment afforded Gorelick, Kerry, and the Democrats by the larger part of the press. On Chris Wallace's show on Fox, Juan Williams of NPR was forced to concede that a conflict existed, but it was clear he considered it unimportant.

I wonder if the press really wants Kerry elected and are doing everything in their power to make it happen, or are they just trying to keep it close to keep the excitement high and the ratings up. Imagine that empty suit as president. Frightening.

[Bithead]

The bottom line here is that the 9/11 commission is supposedly looking for policy holes, which led to the 9/11 attacks being successful. It's clear based on the testimony before the 9/11 commission so far, that the biggest policy problem we faced was the way the Clinton mis-administration treated the Intel community, vis-Ã -vis the law enforcement community. (the wall) And Gorelick was the person behind strengthening that misbegotten policy.

The press and the Democrats (A redundancy, granted) since day one of this commission have been looking for a way to pin this on President George W. Bush. But what has come out of these hearings is that it was not Mr. Bush and HIS policy, but holdover Democrat policy, issued by Ms. Gorelick.

Critics will claim, of course that Mr. Bush was in the hot seat at the time of the attacks. But the security holes which allowed the attacks were not due to a lack in the Bush administration, but rather are directly connected to the Democrats, who held up confirmations of key members of the new administration until less than two months before the 9/11 attacks... To the point where most of the security positions at the highest levels, were still staffed by Clinton Mis-administration appointees.... such as Richard Clarke. As a result of this Democrat stonewalling, for example, Mr. Bush's appointee for the top NSC special assistant for intelligence programs, Mary Sturtevant, had only been on the job for several weeks on 9/11. Do you suppose this would have any effect on how responsive the White House was to various threats? Can Mr. Bush be blamed for faulty policy making, when he is unable to replace the people who put that faulty policy into place?

If there is any fault to be found in our government over the 9/11 attacks, it lies with the Democrats, and their policies. Specifically, in my view, Gorelick is guilty of at least criminal negligence.

In her zeal to keep things super legal, and getting all tied up with the legalities of the situation, she neglected the primary charge of her posiiton: National Security. Watching the hole, and not the doughnut, if you will. The Democrats ought to be ashamed of themselves both for their own faults, and trying to blame President Bush for them. Further, they ought to be reminded of this sin of theirs come 200 days from now.

That the commission has not asked Gorelick to step aside lends itself to the commission having lost any credibility it may have had. They were supposed to be fact finding. The facts are clear, and now the commission is trying to sweep them under the rug.

Why?

Occam-like thinking would suggest that it's because they are unable to pin the blame on their intended target; Mr. Bush.

Perhaps the public should be asking the question now: Just whose interests is this commission serving, anyway?

And more as regards Gorelick; Seems she sat on evdience in both the Flight 800 case, and in the OKC bombing. Jack Cashill over at World Net Daily makes the case that:

"Evidence strongly suggests it was Gorelick – not the ineffectual Freeh – who not only misdirected the FBI's investigation into Oklahoma City, but also the FBI investigation into TWA Flight 800. The parallels between the two cases are shocking. And in each case, the Clinton administration constrained the FBI for the same reason: to advance the re-election chances of its standard bearer. "

It's incresingly apparent that 'the wall' was strengthened not to protect the public, but rather to limit the amount of information getting *to* the public for reasons of political power. And Gorelick was at the forefront of those efforts. No shock then, why the Democrats wuld want her on the 9/11 commission.

[narciso]

Sturtivant, has come up in relation to the whole
Plame case, not that long ago. Rocca, the Middle
East Regional Director, actually had experience
in the Hindu Kush region (having been a former
Company officer, involved the Stinger search)
she wasn't confirmed until July; no doubt in part
to the Jeffords interregnum at the US Senate. That
was a great idea; didn't even feel like a coup, lets do it again

[Bruce Moomaw]

"That the commission has not asked Gorelick to step aside lends itself to the commission having lost any credibility it may have had. They were supposed to be fact finding. The facts are clear, and now the commission is trying to sweep them under the rug."

Uh, yeah, right. The five Republicans -- none of whom have asked her to step aside, with Slade Gorton explicitly defending her during his exchange with Ashcroft -- are all part of the Democratic Conspiracy To Get Bush. (Come to think of it, the NY Post, has already started saying -- or, more accurately, screaming -- that.)

[snoopdoggyduty]

If I were living under a rock, I might never had heard of a case being thrown out for procedural misconduct, or evidence being inadmissable on the basis of the methods used to garner that information, and I might never had heard of Watergate, and might not understand the intent if FISA, and might think it would be imprudent to establish overly stringent procedures to prevent such mishaps, and might think the 9/11 panel was created to bring down Bush, but for the sake of those who died in the Twins and the Pentagon, etc., and more importantly, the survivors, is there room for thought and tolerance in our "Christian" society. We have acknowledged the intelligence was insufficient to defend against 9/11, and the same quality intelligence was used to rally support for the war in Iraq. Apparently, our intelligence is good enough for offense, but not defense. What's a $ billion and a quarter a week? At least our soldiers have job security.