GORELICK GATE: ASHCROFT HITS BACK AT PANEL

New York Post ^ | April 14, 2004 | By VINCENT MORRIS and ANDY SOLTIS

[joinedafterattack]

April 14, 2004 -- Attorney General John Ashcroft turned the tables on the 9/11 commission yesterday, blaming legal restrictions, including a memo written by one of commission's own members, for barring investigators from sharing information that might have stopped the terror attacks. Ashcroft blasted the "legal wall" put into effect in 1995 which stopped information flowing between intelligence agents and criminal probers.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Excellent job by Ashcroft!

From CNN: Ashcroft denies taking little interest in terrorism

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

From the link above:

___________________________________________________________

Ashcroft criticized his predecessors at the Justice Department, saying a 1995 memorandum by then-Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick -- now a member of the commission -- hamstrung the FBI beyond what the law required.

[nutmeg]

ping

[river rat]

This is all going to blow up in the Democrats face...
Unless I miss my guess.....this zoo will cost them more than the White House, they will lose Senate and House seats as well...

Rave on lunatics...

Semper Fi

[Anti-Christ is Hillary]

Ashcroft was brilliant. He had the entire panel turned on their heads and they didn't know if they were coming or going let alone what to say. It was the greatest TV I've seen in months. I laughed thru the entire thing.

[jonno]

bump

[MCFujiTanker]

I was shaving this morning on Guam when AG ASHCROFT was testifying. I kept running out of the head to listen...my wife thought I was losing my mind. By the time Hannity and Colmes came on later at work I was eating my lunch...I almost puked when the DUKAKIS lady came on. YUCK!! Semper Fidelis (Eagle, Globe and Anchor...Marine Corps Tanker!!)

[MCFujiTanker]

I was shaving this morning on Guam when AG ASHCROFT was testifying. I kept running out of the head to listen...my wife thought I was losing my mind. By the time Hannity and Colmes came on later at work I was eating my lunch...I almost puked when the DUKAKIS lady came on. Man, is she full of bologna. YUCK!! Semper Fidelis (Eagle, Globe and Anchor...Marine Corps Tanker!!)

[tkathy]

Ashcroft was awesome! Imagine if 9/11 had happened under Clinton's watch and Janet Reno was in charge.

[Waco]

The commiecRAT party is this country's #1 enemy! Public enemy #1! Don't ever forget that!

[Lancey Howard]

Unless I miss my guess.....this zoo will cost them more than the White House, they will lose Senate and House seats as well...

That is certainly what SHOULD happen and what WOULD happen in a nation where there was an honest news media. Unfortunately, you know as well as I that this story will be downplayed and spun by liberal newsrooms across the country. Heck, they'll probably find a way to make Ashcroft look mean and vindictive and..... partisan.

[First_Salute]

Is howcome, after a meeting in Washington, D.C., in June of 1999, I told a friend, that whoever comes up with the cure for cancer, do not take it to Washington, D.C.

Because it will never go public.

[CalifornianConservative]

Well, God Bless John Ashcroft, who has stumbled into the mantle of the much hated (by the left) J. Edgar Hoover.

Thank GOD ABOVE that one of our Republicans has the cajones to tell the truth, and to tell it with the strength of his convictions.

Rant on, Mr. A, rant on! There is no weapon formed that will prosper against you when you speak the truth like that!

[First_Salute]

The "wall" stems from the different approaches of criminal investigators, who must follow strict rules of due process and other concerns, and anti-terrorism investigators, who have more freedom in seizing evidence and taking other measures.

Bull.

The "wall" is not that we must follow strict rules about due process. The "wall" is about the re-interpretationists who play scrabble with the language and bend words in our laws way beyond the authors' original intent. The "wall" is such leftist lawyering legaleze designed to affect social engineering by actually making due process fail, sometimes by working it to death, but generally by portraying it for public consumption as something that it is not.

Among the blessings of due process, are that the burden of following the rule of law is placed upon government officials, to observe their duties within the limits set down by law. Officials must follow the steps and are not to shortchange you of these steps.

The "wall" is not that the steps intended in the law are too much; the "wall" is that the insidious judge-made extra-Cosntitution steps --- the many more than originally intended by the authors of the law --- are pulled from outer space by "the left" which desires a government by such judiciary.

Such that, instead of there being a due process of exacting steps made by law as we are to fashion law under our Constitution --- by the democratic-republican process --- no, instead, "the left" desires that they make laws by stripping the words in our laws, of their fixed nature, of their original intent, by literally playing scrabble with the words, making them so bendable or elastic as to then be rendered other than the authors' original intent.

That, is the "wall;" a minefield of bureaucratic excess.

Well then, to try and get something done, comes the argument that --- in over-generalization --- "due process is in the way" when that is not the case at all.

Due process is not in the way.

Meaningless-ness as a trade, that is the "product" of socialist thought police, who are at war against western values, and so they are busy defining what is good, to be in the way, setting a stage for public consumption of Hillary Clinton's fiction, by strewing in the path of due process, a maze that is intended by them, to get you/us to quit due process, to give up the fight for maintaining due process.

By wearing you/us down with what they want you/us to believe that due process is somehow ... "scary" and between you/us and government protecting you/us.

All the while, these socialists chatter about how they are champions of due process.

Depends upon what their meaning of "due process," "is." If a body cares to ask.

When you/we don't ask, their "due process" is revealed after the damage that it has done, as being nothing like what our laws' authors' orignally intended.

Instead, it is just plain gobbledygook. See the leftists' much beloved, "living" tax code, for a "good example."

[Freedom4US]

I'll bet my last P-38 that crap was made up out of whole cloth or at best taken way out of context, so that our "liberal" media would have an alternative headline in lieu of what REALLY happened - no search warrant for meathead's laptop, because of "the wall" - and the authoress is on the commission! You can't make this stuff up.

[Caipirabob]

You know, after I read about Ashcroft's performance yesterday I was kind of charged. Someone finally placed the concerns into perspective by stating the extent of the disaster that the previous administration forwarded as "policy".

Then I ruined my mood last night by listening to O'Reilly who spews about Ashcroft denying responsibility and spending his time cover "nekkid statues" with blankets during the first months of his service. He berated them all for not taking "responsibility" for 9/11.

O'Reilly needs to get a clue. If Ashcroft was flying the darn planes I'd probably be of a different mindset. The fatal flaw with O'Reilly's statement is that he advocates Ashcroft pursuing Terrorists via the same failed policies as the Clinton fiasco, the same policy that eventually lead to 9/11.

The problem is that we were never at a state of war at any given time with the new administration. Bush had to deal with the rats stonewalling every aspect of Bush's ability to even establish a new governing body. How long did it take for the GAO to hand over "the keys" at the goading of the rats? How long before they even had a key board that was capable of typing more than " ar on Terror"?

Bush had many obstacle to overcome just to get settled in the White House. The rats obstructed him at every possible point.

One could even state that the rats themselves are responsible for critical delays that may have been responsible for Bush to be able to do anything about 9/11.

Not that he could have. Yet we didn't need people in our own country working against this country at such a time. We don't need to look beyond the border to find the real enemies of this nation. They are the rats.

[Dahoser]

Ashcroft was awesome! Imagine if 9/11 had happened under Clinton's watch and Janet Reno was in charge.

We wouldn't be having this conversation because we'd still be under martial law.

[OXENinFLA]

I missed this yesterday,I wish I'd stayed at work to watch this.


GORLICK MUST BE REMOVED!

[Right_in_Virginia]

BTTT

[angkor]

Ashcroft said when he took office in January 2001 he found "no covert action program to kill bin Laden" - just to arrest him. "But even this program was crippled by a snarled web of requirements, restrictions and regulations that prevented decisive action by our men and women in the field," he added.

This disgraceful commission let Reno off the hook without a single question about the impediments she habitually erected to the capture of bin Laden.

Actually, they did ask her one and only one question, and when she pleaded "for guidance" because she didn't know what was classified or not, they stopped.

Thus some of the most important issues about DoJ handling of this matter under Reno will be hidden from public disclosure.

Thankfully, Steve Coll's book Ghost Wars does a good job of revealing the truth.

[Diogenesis]

Corrupt Democrat obstructing the 911 Commission:
"We Democrats own the Commission.
We Democrats own the schools and universities and the unions.
We Democrats own the media.
We Democrats even control the vote of the dead.
You bet that I personally dared refuse repeat DOJ requests for investigations of dangerous illegal aliens.
and I even personally arranged to stovepipe intelligence to make intraagency effective communication useless.
I even arranged for the illegal aliens who were felons to be voters for our Democratic party.
Ha. We even have John Aschroft's and each and every RINO's FBI file on our home and DNC computers.
So what are you wusses dare gonna do about it? Nothing. Now sit down "

---

PARTIAL LIST OF TERRORIST ACTIVITIES IGNORED BY GORELICK, CLARKE and CLINTON

1993 Attempted Assassination of Pres. Bush Sr., April 14,1993
1993 First World Trade Center bombing, February 26th, 7 Killed, Hundreds injured, Billions
1995 Attack on US Diplomats in Pakistan, Mar 8,1995
1996 Khobar Towers attack
1998 U.S. Embassy Bombing in Peru, Jan 15, 1998
1998 U.S. Kenya Embassy blown up, 100's murdered
1998 U.S. Tanzania Embassy blown up, 100's murdered
1999 Plot to blow up Space Needle (thwarted)
2000 USS Cole attacked, many U.S. Navy sailors murdered

---

AMERICANS DEMAND AN INDEPENDENT 911 COMMISSION

YOU GOTTA FREEP THIS - Gorlick made the interagency Intel wall AND refused attempts by the DOJ to investigate aliens
yet NOW she "guards the guardians". This is corrupt.

BREAKING: Ashcroft has declassified a report Gorelick wrote several years ago
that established the wall that protects against Intel. agencies sharing information.
Background 911 Threads

TWO DAYS AGO

"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."
[Former FBI Director Louis Freeh]

GORELICK SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM THE COMMISSION NOW
OR A WARNING LABEL HERALDING THE WILLFUL IMPROPRIETY SHOULD BE ON THE COVER

Making a mockery of justice, Jamie Gorelick,
1) who established the wall that protects against Intel.agencies sharing information
that created the 911 Atrocites, and

2) who REFUSED to take Former FBI Director Louis Freeh's
recommendation now Judges what happened. Isn't that special?

---

FREEP: Phone Commission at 202-331-4060
Email Commission at info@9-11commission.gov
put Thomas Kean in the subject line.

DEMAND THAT GORELICK BE REMOVED! FOR EITHER REASON #1 or #2 or both or other reasons suggested below.

info@9-11commission.gov

DONT FORGET - PUT THOMAS KEAN IN THE SUBJECT LINE

[TomSmedley]

Ashcroft was awesome! Imagine if 9/11 had happened under Clinton's watch and Janet Reno was in charge.

Let's see ... the Clinton justice department had more improtant things to do that fight terrorism. They were competent to incincerate 80+ men, women, and children in their church. To kidnap a Cuban boy at gunpoint on Easter morning.

[mewzilla]

Gorelick, who wrote the "wall" memo to then-FBI Director Louis Freeh that codified the restrictions, was not visibly surprised by Ashcroft's move, although other commission members seemed taken aback.

What else did they expect? Talk about putting the idiot in the term useful idiots.

[McGruff]

Take a look at the NY Post Front Page today.

[snopercod]

I, too, would like to know specifically why Ashcroft felt he was prevented from doing his job.

This "wall" explanation is like a balloon with no skin - It's like blaming the "NASA culture" for the loss of Columbia.

After you digest the official explanation of went wrong, you are left with no idea of what to change to prevent future catastrophes.

One can almost summarize the Reno/Ashcroft explanation as "It's your fault. You wouldn't give us enough money or enough power." (Corollary: If we only had unlimited power and an unlimited budget, we could prevent this from ever happening again.)

The truth of the matter is that the FBI at the time was too busy burning babies and surveilling the "right wing militia" to worry about foreign terrorists.

[TomGuy]

Gorelick Memo Declassified (Graphics of 4 page document)

[Shut up and take it]

I wonder if it has dawned on the Dems that these hearings on 9/11 haven't helped them?

[11Bush]

I wish you would stop posting the photos of the WTC. Everytime I see them I get the, barely restrained, desire to punch a lib in the mouth. One day my restraint will be trumped by my anger.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Speaking of the media , see this:

Public's cynicism about media has become a pressing concern