Saturday, March 26, 2011

Putting The Fox In Charge Of The Henhouse

As if we don't have enough to worry about, reports coming out of Washington DC indicate that Jamie Gorelick (shown on the left, appropriately) is on the President's A List to be the next head of the FBI. Gorelick played a major role in keeping federal intelligence agencies from sharing information on terrorist activity prior to 9-11. At the 9-11 Commission hearings, she was unable to find any flaws in her career with the Clinton Justice Department's handling of potential terrorist attacks.

Gorelick's handling of interdepartmental/interagency cooperation on terrorist intelligence has become known as Gorelick's Wall. There is a strong belief among terrorism experts that Gorelick's Wall played a major role in allowing the 9-11 World Trade Center attack to proceed for lack of coordinated counter-terrorism efforts. She set strict "no contact" rules for the agencies investigating and following up on the 1993 World Trade Center attack. She also strictly interpreted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in place at the time to prevent intelligence officers from sharing information with the law enforcement agencies attempting to prosecute the Trade Center conspirators.

Bush Attorney General John Ashcroft testified at the 9-11 hearings that: "In 1995 the Justice Department, imposed a series of restrictions on the FBI that went well beyond what the law required. The single greatest structural cause for September 11 was the wall that segregated criminal investigators and intelligence agents. Government erected this wall, government buttressed this wall, and before September 11, government was blinded by this wall." Later, and not under oath, Gorelick responded in an op-ed in the Washington Post. She proclaimed: "I did not invent the wall, which is not a wall but a set of procedures implementing a 1978 statute and federal court decisions interpreting it."

True enough, Ms. Gorelick, as far as it goes. But Ashcroft did not accuse Gorelick of inventing the wall (he specifically said "government erected it"). Ashcroft clearly said that Gorelick didn't disobey the law--she tortured it. But in fairness to Gorelick and the Clinton Justice Department, Ashcroft didn't do anything much himself to make the wall more transparent during his tenure prior to 9-11. Nevertheless, Ashcroft has re-examined his lack of action prior to 9-11 and has found his agenda wanting. Gorelick, on the other hand, has continued to be entirely convinced she did everything exactly as she should have.

After setting up rigid rules preventing intelligence and criminal prosecution agencies from sharing information on terrorist activities in 1994 and 1995, Gorelick left the Justice Department in 1977 to become the "go-to guy" for Franklin Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae. That's understandable. She didn't make $26 million in salary, bonuses and stock options at the Justice Department the way she did at Fannie Mae. In league with Raines and Congressman Barney Frank, she helped to create the machinery for subprime loans and government purchases of Fannie Mae bad debt which resulted in the economic crash which was the economic equivalent of the 9-11 attack. She learned her banking skills during her tenure as the Clinton budget director before moving over to Fannie Mae.

Intelligence incompetence and economic disaster-enabling deserve great reward. And the Wall Street Journal, among others, has reported that the post of FBI Director might very well be that reward. Talk about terror. The concept of an Eric Holder Justice Department working hand-in-glove and head-in-sand with a Jamie Gorelick FBI terrifies me.


12 comments:

Tennessee Jed said...

Hawk - as I read this morning's post, the question that arose in my mind is: what if any confirmation responsibility is there for this post? If nothing else, the media howling from the "good guys" outlets needs to be loud enough to deeply embarrass B.O.

I should also point out that my respect for Ms. Gorelick has not increased over the past couple of days. In fact, if we actually dissect her surname, we could potentially determine what she may have really been up to during her years in the "free love" Clinton administration. Could this realization actually be what caused Tipper to bail on Nobel Oscarman?

T_Rav said...

"Intelligence incompetence and economic disaster-enabling"

Sounds like she's right up Obama's alley, then.

Joel Farnham said...

Hey, How about sending Gorelick to Libya, alone of course, to investigate exactly how Kaddaffi is fairing among the little people? She can explain to them that it isn't nice to destroy buildings. And why don't we just get along?

Who is the idiot that recommended her? Obama seems bound and determined to destroy everything in the Whitehouse.

BevfromNYC said...

****News Alert****
I just saw report that Geraldine Ferraro just died. It does not say of what. I actually had a great deal of respect for Ms. Ferraro.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, I saw that. I never really agreed with her on anything, but she did a good job of providing analysis -- and she certainly wasn't as lock step as the rest of the liberals on tv.

wahsatchmo said...

When Gorelick was a top exec at Fannie Mae, the company magically hit their EPS projections every quarter like clockwork to the penny. This doesn't happen in the real world, which was a clear indicator to anyone not involved in the government that fraud was occurring in the financial statements that would dwarf the machinations of Enron and Worldcom.

Also during her reign, Fannie had large, magical derivative gains (from the sale of unicorns and rainbows, apparently) that were "unexpected", another good sign that bullshit was afoot.

Executive bonuses were paid out like clockwork based on these earnings.

And yet no one has made a single effort to prosecute anyone at Fannie or Freddie like the way they went after Enron and Worldcom execs. In a just world, Gorelick would be in a women's prison across from Ken Lay for this alone.

Add in all of her other sins and she should be deported to the sun.

Unknown said...

Tennessee: The woman is a hopeless stonewaller, and simply has no ability to admit she could even have made a minor mistake in judgment. The perfect Obama nominee.

You have a dirtier mind than I do. I admire that. LOL

Unknown said...

T_Rav: I imagine she's giving him advice on his handling of Libya this very minute. I guess the upside is as Director of the FBI she won't screw up the CIA since she won't have any contact with the latter.

Unknown said...

Joel: I made a similar comment to T-Rav (above). Hadn't seen yours yet. The difference between Gorelick and Obama is that he won't admit a mistake, but he'll sneakily change his position then lie about it. She won't admit a mistake, and she won't do anything about it either.

Unknown said...

Bev: That was the first news I saw when I got up (late) this morning. Even though I hadn't yet converted to the Republican side when she was the VP candidate, I found her a little too liberal for my tastes. But she was no leftist by any means, and was a respectable voice for the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.

Unknown said...

Andrew: One thing I noticed about her more recently was that she would chide her fellow Democrats for their misogynistic attacks on Sarah Palin. She was a traditional feminist and didn't much care for the more radicalized form of that movement.

Unknown said...

wahstachmo: She and her gang of creative accountants were the embodiment of the old saying that figures don't lie but liars sure can figure. They were good at the currently popular Obama method of double-counting along with the specifics you mentioned. Maybe if she becomes Director she'll investigate herself. Yeah, I know, fat chance.

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