Someone want to take a guess on what Henry Hyde is referring to in this April, 1995 House Judiciary Committee meeting? Out of the blue, he asked Louie Freeh if anyone had "overruled his request to surveill certain terroristic targets." This House Judiciary Committee meeting is one month after the now-declassified Gorelick "Build-a-Wall" memo and 13 days before the OKC bombing.
I'm wondering if Freeh or someone else in the FBI had submitted a FISA request for surveillance on foreigners -- foreigners who were planning a bombing in the Heartland. If this is what Henry Hyde is referring to below, that would be one reason Gorelick wrote her "Build-a-Wall" memo to Freeh and others.
Have we determined the exact motivation for Gorelick writing her March 4, 1995 memo yet?
APRIL 6, 1995, THURSDAY
CAPITOL HILL HEARING WITH DEFENSE DEPARTMENT PERSONNEL
HEARING OF THE HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
SUBJECT: INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM
CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE HENRY HYDE (R-IL)
PANEL II; 10:55 AM
PANEL II
WITNESSES:
ADM. WILLIAM STUDEMAN, ACTING DIR., CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
JAMIE S. GORELICK, DEP. ATTY. GEN., U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
LOUIS J. FREEH, DIRECTOR, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
AMB. PHILIP WILCOX, COORDINATOR, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
2141 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING(snip)
REP. HYDE: Director Freeh, has the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review overruled your request to surveill certain terroristic targets?MR. FREEH: No, sir.
REP. HYDE: That has not happened?
MR. FREEH: Unless you can be more specific I don't know that I could answer that. But no, as far as I know, it's not.
REP. HYDE: All right, I don't think it's appropriate to be more specific, but that was something that I had heard that concerned me. If you say it didn't happen --
MR. FREEH: No, we have recently -- the Attorney General and the Deputy and myself discussed some -- not changes, but clarifying our mutual interpretation of the Attorney General's guidelines with respect to investigating terrorism cases to ensure that we are not missing anything. But other than that, I don't really have any complaints about it.
(snip)