9/11 Commissioner Should Be A Witness
Turns out that former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick is sitting on the wrong side of the table in these hearings. Gorelick had a hand in crafting the beauracratic "wall" that prevented the FBI and CIA from sharing intelligence.Here is an exerpt from John Ashcroft's opening statement from his day at the commission:
When the CIA finally told the FBI that al Mihdhar and al Hazmi were in the country in late August, agents in New York searched for the suspects. But because of the wall, FBI headquarters refused to allow criminal investigators who knew the most about recent al Qaeda attacks to join the hunt for suspected terrorists.That author/commissioner was/is Jamie Gorelick.
At that time, a frustrated FBI investigator wrote headquarters, and I'm quoting: "Whatever has happened to this, some day somebody -- someone will die. And, wall or not, the public will not understand why we were not more effective in throwing every resource we had at certain problems. Let's hope the National Security Law Unit will stand behind their decision then, especially since the biggest threat to us, OBL, is getting the most protection."
FBI headquarters responded, and I quote: "We're all frustrated with this issue. These are the rules. NSLU does not make them up."
But somebody did make these rules. Somebody built this wall.
ASHCROFT: The basic architecture for the wall in the 1995 guidelines was contained in a classified memorandum entitled "Instructions for Separation of Certain Foreign Counterintelligence and Criminal Investigations."
The memorandum ordered FBI Director Louis Freeh and others, quote, "We believe that it is prudent to establish a set of instructions that will more clearly separate the counterintelligence investigation from the more limited, but continued criminal investigations.
"These procedures," the memo went on to say, "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 would apply in a criminal investigation."
This memorandum laid the foundation for a wall separating the criminal and intelligence investigations, as a matter of fact, established the wall following the 1993 World Trade Center attack, which at the time was the largest international terrorism attack on American soil, the largest prior to September 11th.
Although you understand the debilitating impact of the wall, I cannot imagine that the commission knew about this memorandum. So I have had it declassified for you and the public to review.
Full disclosure compels me to inform you that the author of this memorandum is a member of the commission.
Here is an exerpt from the 9/11 Commission's website in regards to recusals:
Commission Guidelines on RecusalsMy concern is that Gorelick is motivated to save her own reputation.
Commissioners, senior staff, and other covered staff have all fully complied with Senate Ethics rules for disclosure of their employment histories and financial information. Beyond this disclosure, the Commission seeks to avoid damaging conflicts of interest in the conduct of its work by respecting three principles:
1. Financial Interests
Commissioners and staff will recuse themselves from participating in matters as to which they have a financial interest.
2. Conflicts Arising from Prior Government Service
Commissioners and staff will recuse themselves from investigating work they performed in prior government service.
3. Personal Connections
Where a commissioner or staff member has a close personal relationship with an individual, or either supervised or was supervised by an individual, the commissioner or staff member should not play a primary role in the Commission interview of that person.
Questions about the application of these principles in specific cases will be resolved by the Commission’s General Counsel.
It is looking more and more like the Democrats on this commission are acting in a partisan manner. Now, it appears that we have a Commissioner who should never have been appointed at all.
It all goes back to MemoGate... I haven't forgotten that the Democrats planned to politicize intelligence. I had no idea that the Democrats were willing to politicize 9/11 as well.
I shouldn't be surprised...
