The Gorelick Rosetta Stone

WebCommentary.com ^ | 20 April 2004 | Scott Jordan

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

The Gorelick Rosetta Stone

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Has 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick's famous memo provided the missing link between Chinagate and 9/11?

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Recall, too, that during the time of Ms. Gorelick's 1995 memo, the issue causing the most tension between the Reno-Gorelick Justice Department and Director Freeh's FBI was not counterterrorism but widely reported allegations of contributions to the Clinton-Gore campaign from foreign sources, involving the likes of John Huang and Charlie Trie. -- The Wall Street Journal, Thursday, April 15, 2004

Hats off to the Wall Street Journal for a spectacular observation, perhaps the Rosetta Stone of postmillennial national security.

Let its boiled-down essence not escape your attention: the ongoing dividends of Chinagate may well have included 9/11.

And history may be repeating itself. Let me explain.

To set the stage, recall that Bill Clinton ensured his loyal minions populated the US Attorneys' offices nationwide when he fired every last US Attorney at the dawn of his Administration, then appointed his own. Next, as we have seen through Jamie Gorelick's startling memo[1], he saw to it that domestic law enforcement was blinded to foreign intelligence information. He then methodically offered up White House access and key strategic technologies to the highest bidder: China, and Indonesian/Chinese billionaire donors with close ties to China's dictatorial regime. Intriguingly, Clinton's Department of Justice's signature assault on Microsoft also appears to have been to the benefit of Indonesian/Chinese billionaires, who just happened to be the originating funders of the private venture fund which was the largest shareholder in lead plaintiff Netscape at the time[2]

With the declassification of former Deputy Attorney General Gorelick's memo, the picture comes into sharp focus: the Clinton Administration was not just:

• Inattentive towards terrorism;
  
  
• Impotent in its response to bin Laden's challenges;
  
  
• Burdened by petty bureaucratic squabbles and a thong-distracted Chief Executive, blocking urgently-needed intel initiatives[3];

...but also:

• Purposefully malfeasant in hamstringing the intelligence community even beyond Carter-era Church Commission strictures. "Gorelick's Wall" was not just a monument to political correctness and lawyer-think run amok, it was a strategic keystone of the Clinton Administration's wholesale auction of America's security, sovereignty and economy.

Yes, the economy, Clinton's vaunted economy, with its skyrocketing stock-market and spectacular 5.6% 1996 unemployment rate (which of course puts George W. Bush’s dismal 2004 5.6% unemployment rate to shame). This unstoppable economy screeched to an ignominious halt in the second half of 2000 as the tech sector imploded[4] - a multi-trillion-dollar evaporation of shareholder wealth driven in significant part by the DOJ's pursuit of tech bellwether Microsoft, which put a measurable damper on enthusiasm for big-cap technology stocks and funding for new tech ventures alike.

Follow the money. The legacy of that Administration is not just one of incompetence and inattention culminating in an innocence-crushing September morning once it was safely out of office. It is one of malevolent, calculated wholesaling of loyalty for political gain, with Gorelick's Wall providing cover by blinding law enforcement efforts that might have made a difference.

Still, Chinagate was exposed, and in a sane world it would have hit the political world like one of the Chinese ICBMs it facilitated. But Clinton was untouchable - immunized! - after the Lewinsky obstruction-of-justice mess fizzled like the captivating but comparatively feeble bottle-rocket it was. Today the damage extends far beyond the smoldering pits of lower Manhattan and the Pentagon. The world now stands on the cusp of decades of global turmoil in the face of emboldened and metastasized radical Islamism, most recently including al Qaeda’s successful gambit towards reestablishing Moorish dispensation in Andalusia[5].

Is Chinagate old news? Water under the bridge? Something for the 9/11 Commission's Democrat partisans to pooh-pooh and ignore as they recklessly paint their anti-Bush pastiche?

Not if you continue to mourn the thousands dead on that grim September morning. And not if you consider what other reflexively anti-Defense politician currently angling for the Presidency has financial ties to some of the same scandalous campaign donors as Bill Clinton: John Kerry is today's victorious campaign-donation choice of Chinagate's Huang-linked George Chao-Chi Chu, described as having "unusual access to high-ranking Communist officials in China" [6]. And that is old news, in a way: for in 1996 John Kerry received cash from Johnny Chung and Liu Chaoying, daughter of a powerful Chinese military official, for providing high-level access to Federal securities regulators. Kerry's cash came from transfers sent to Chung on orders from the chief of Chinese military intelligence[7].

"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." - George Santayana

Scott Jordan

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Notes: 

1 A web-accessible transcription of the Gorelick "Wall" memo is at http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm?include=detail&storyid=659679

2 At the time of the DOJ's action against Microsoft was initiated, lead plaintiff Netscape's largest shareholder was the private venture fund of Amerindo Investment Advisors. "The name Amerindo came from the fund's first investors, a group of Indonesian Chinese who wanted [the founder, Cuban expatriate Alberto] Vilar to call the firm American Indonesian Singaporean Investment Co. but settled for an abbreviation." -- Fortune, October 25, 1999

3 Caspar Weinberger, Washington Times, Sept. 2, 2003, reviewing Miniter: "The president never supported Mr. Woolsey's urgent request for Arabic-language translators for the CIA in 1994. A separate feud between Mr. Woolsey and Sen. Dennis DeConcini, Arizona Democrat, was allowed to run its course without direction by the Clinton White House, which further set back the CIA director's appeal for Arabic translators." So, as the author concludes, "a bureaucratic feud and President Clinton's indifference kept America blind and deaf as bin Laden plotted."

4 For a graphical econometric analysis of the recession's onset, see http://www.speakeasy.org/~dervish/recession.pdf

5 London Telegraph, "Bin Laden makes an offer that he cannot deliver",http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fopinion%2F2004%2F04%2F18%2Fdo1806.xml

6 The Hill, "Fundraiser resurfaces from 1996", Sam Dealey, http://www.hillnews.com/news/073003/fundraiser.aspx

7 NewsMax, "Kerry Took Cash From Chinese Military Intelligence", http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/2/2/124555.shtml

[Judith Anne]

And this morning, my question is still with me...who can prosecute all these crimes of the Clinton era? Look anywhere, from tainted blood sold by a crony to the selling of nuclear technology to Iraq oil -- which of the liberal politicians are untouched and uncorrupted by the vastest of scandals and crimes?

This is a scale beyond comprehension, for me...unbelievable.

[antonia]

Lewis 'Scooter' Libby is Dick Cheneys Chief of Staff. He has had a string of government jobs in State and Defense. He has also practiced law. In fact, he was Marc Rich's lawyer for years. Yes the same Marc Rich who was pardond by President Clinton.

Scooter is alleged by some to have traded energy stocks while helping Dick Cheney develop a new energy policy. He is also suspected of having inserted the Niger yellowcake reference into the Presidents State of the Union address. He is also a top suspect in the outing of CIA operative Valeria Plame.

[cyncooper]

Goodness.

Why you thought I needed a lesson in who Libby is beyond me.

He did not "leak" Plame's name, no matter how many times people click their heels together three times and wish it to be so.

[cyncooper]

Years ago, it was my opinion that we wouldn't know the full extent of the Clinton crimes until long after he was out of office...I wonder now if even the worst are ever going to become known.

I agree with point one...I, too, thought it would be years before the full extent would become known. I think all indications are it will be sooner rather than later. And full prosecution does not equal never becoming known. Chin up.

[antonia]

Goodness. Why you thought I needed a lesson in who Libby is beyond me. He did not leak Plame's name, no matter how many times people click their heels together three times and wish it to be so.

Well then, 'cyncooper', tell us why you are so sure, or are we supposed to take this just on your say so?

The only thing that makes free republic or any discussion interesting is if there are source references. Otherwise any discussion will descend into nothing more than a 'democratic underground' sort of place with free for all name calling, conspiracy theories based on fantasy and ending in the hopeless humiliation of someone saying and expecting to be taken as an authority because 'cyncooper' sez so! Which wouldn't be a good idea, as you have already demonstrated by misquoting me.

The 'lesson' was to demonstrate my line of reasoning. If you have found fault with it, or would like to add further insight, please include the reasons why you think so instead of just throwing out useless little comments.

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

Also see http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1124429/posts?page=1, "Gorelick Memo Allegedly Impeded Probe of Clinton Fundraising Scandal", reportage by CNSNews.com.

This original article, "The Gorelick Rosetta Stone", has also been picked up by CNSNews.com and is posted in slightly edited form at http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewCommentary.asp?Page=\Commentary\archive\200404\COM20040426a.html.

[ninenot]

Bookmark

[ninenot]

Gore-Lick has got something, somewhere, on SOMEONE - (who knows) that is FORCING Kean to keep her on the commission.

Coachm disagrees, assessing Kean as clueless.

Clueless, maybe. FBI-Files sensitive??

Why not?

[antonia]

Also the administration did not select Gorelick to the commission; the dems did.
The commission was given limited access to some documents and they selected who would view them--not the WH. So it came to be that Gorelick was one of only three commissioners to see the August 2001 PDB before the WH declassified it. ~ cyncooper

I relied on the following quote from the Washington Post which does imply that President Bush appointed the commission members. When I searched the http://www.9-11commission.gov/ , I found that that is not how the commission was composed see below:SEC. 603. COMPOSITION OF COMMISSION.

The same Washington Post article seems to also imply that the commission members will have full access to all information ~ take it as you will, but unlike you, I have established my sources.~ Toni

President Bush today named seven members of a commission, to be headed by former Virginia senator Charles S. Robb (D-Va.) and senior appeals court judge Laurence H. Silberman, to investigate U.S. intelligence-gathering prior to the war in Iraq as well as broader questions about nuclear weapons proliferation in North Korea, Libya and Iran. He asked the panel to report by March 31, 2005, with findings and recommendations.

and also:

Bush said he had ordered all departments and agencies, including our intelligence agencies, to assist the commission's work. The commission will have full access to the findings of the Iraq Survey Group. Bush Names Iraq Panel ; Former Sen. Robb, Retired Judge Silberman, Sen. McCain Among Those Appointed; By Fred Barbash; Washington Post Staff Writer ; Friday, February 6, 2004; 3:02 PM 2004 The Washington Post Company

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States

http://www.9-11commission.gov/

SEC. 603. COMPOSITION OF COMMISSION.

http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/107-306.title6.htm

(a) Members.--The Commission shall be composed of 10 members, of whom--

(1) 1 member shall be appointed by the President, who shall serve as chairman of the Commission;

(2) 1 member shall be appointed by the leader of the Senate (majority or minority leader, as the case may be) of the Democratic Party, in consultation with the leader of the House of Representatives (majority or minority leader, as the [[Page 116 STAT. 2409]] case may be) of the Democratic Party, who shall serve as vice chairman of the Commission;

(3) 2 members shall be appointed by the senior member of the Senate leadership of the Democratic Party;

(4) 2 members shall be appointed by the senior member of the leadership of the House of Representatives of the Republican Party;

(5) 2 members shall be appointed by the senior member of the Senate leadership of the Republican Party; and

(6) 2 members shall be appointed by the senior member of the leadership of the House of Representatives of the Democratic Party.

[ninenot]

It appears that I must have missed the day of law school when they explained the Wilmer Cutler exception to the conflict rules.

What we need is a little more well-deserved cynicism about attorneys and "ethics."

[cyncooper]

Well then, 'cyncooper', tell us why you are so sure, or are we supposed to take this just on your say so?

The only thing that makes free republic or any discussion interesting is if there are source references.

Well, a check on my posting history illustrates I am one to back up my statements, so I don't appreciate your mini-lecture.

I say Libby didn't know about Plame or Wilson because he, Cheney, and the WH were not aware of the Wilson trip.

I realize you've missed my multiple linkings to the George Tenet statement regarding the Wilson Niger trip, but here it is again:

Text of CIA Director George Tenet's statement

Excerpt regarding the Wilson trip:

Because this report, in our view, did not resolve whether Iraq was or was not seeking uranium from abroad, it was given a normal and wide distribution, but we did not brief it to the President, Vice-President or other senior Administration officials. We also had to consider that the former Nigerien officials knew that what they were saying would reach the U.S. government and that this might have influenced what they said.

~snip~

[daisymeme]

   ... In case anyone was in doubt, Janet Reno herself affirmed the policy several months later in a July 19, 1995, memo that we (wsj) have unearthed. In it, the then-Attorney General instructs all U.S. Attorneys about avoiding "the appearance" of overlap between intelligence-related activities and law-enforcement operations.

.... Ms. Gorelick--an aspirant to Attorney General under a President Kerry--now sits in judgment of the current Administration. This is what, if the principle has any meaning at all, people call a conflict of interest. Henry Kissinger was hounded off the Commission for far less. It's such a big conflict of interest that the White House could hardly be blamed if it decided to cease cooperation with the 9/11 Commission pending Ms. Gorelick's resignation and her testimony under oath as a witness into the mind of the Reno Justice Department. What exactly was the purpose of the wall?

[Homer1]

Bump

[Ann Archy]

Memo to Commission Kean: WAKE UP!! The reason that you think Gorelick was the "hardest working" was because she worked hard to COVER-UP all the incriminating stuff she and the Clintonoids did! WAKE THE HELL UP!

[Beau Schott]

Ms. Gorelick was appointed to the commission by Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, South Dakota Democrat, and former House Democratic leader and presidential candidate Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri.

Hyper-partisans members of the 9/11 commission; Richard Ben-Veniste, Jamie Gorelick and Tim Roemer, report back regularly to Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle for political fine-tuning.

Ms. Gorelick should not be a commission member, she should be a star witness. Testifying before the commission should properly be Ms. Gorelick's only role, not sitting as a member of this 'independent' commission. She ought to be called on as a witness because that memo went beyond what the law required. There's no way the commission or Gorelick can have an objective conclusion as a result of her investigating her own memorandum.

When you ask hard questions of people who are in office, they take offense, she [Ms. Gorelick] said. The chairman of the bipartisan commission, former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean, backed her up, telling reporters, "People ought to stay out of our business".

Send the email to the following address: info@9-11Commission.gov

You may also phone the commission here:

Tel: (202) 331-4060

Fax: (202) 296-5545

[daisymeme]

Bump

Gorelick's Wall was not just a monument to political correctness and lawyer-think run amok, it was a strategic keystone of the Clinton Administration's wholesale auction of America's security, sovereignty and economy.

Jim Quinn made this the centerpiece of some spectacular commentary Thursday.
Go to the link below... choose your preferred download format (MP3, WinAmp, etc.) for the Thursday program, then fast forward through the first 47 minutes.
Quinn did a fabulous job! http://archives.warroom.com/archives.php

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

Quinn was on fire last Thursday. I hope all Freepers take you up on your suggestion of listening to that segment. It goes on quite a while, too-- through several commercials and past several brief forays into other topics.

Folks, be sure to write Jim Quinn at quinn@warroom.com to tell him his very informative commentary (and many mentions of FR!) was very much appreciated.

[nopardons]

bttt

[Political Junkie Too]

To set the stage, recall that Bill Clinton ensured his loyal minions populated the US Attorneys' offices nationwide when he fired every last US Attorney at the dawn of his Administration, then appointed his own. Next, as we have seen through Jamie Gorelick's startling memo[1], he saw to it that domestic law enforcement was blinded to foreign intelligence information.

Also interesting is this story from Chris Ruddy of Newsmax, from 1999:

The truth is that Janet Reno was the most important appointment made to the Clinton cabinet. Bill and Hillary Clinton, professional white-collar criminals, knew that their attorney general would be critical to their hold on the presidency. They also knew their choice for the Cabinet post would come under close scrutiny by Senate Republicans.

[snip]

According to Reno's former associate, the big problem with Reno was she probably wouldn't pass the FBI background check and the almost certain Senate confirmation process. So, the Clintons devised a brilliant plan to get their nominee approved without an FBI inquiry and with no real Senate review.

First, Bill Clinton nominated Zoe Baird, a well-regarded attorney, for the post. She seemed to be sailing through the process, when damaging information from her FBI file was leaked that disclosed Baird had hired a housekeeper and had not paid social security taxes.

Baird withdrew, and Clinton nominated New Your Judge Kimba Wood. Again FBI file details were leaked to the press, and Wood too had not paid social security taxes for her domestic help. She also withdrew.

The Clinton administration, renown for putting positive spin on damaging information, made no effort to condemn the inappropriate leaks from Baird's and Wood's FBI files. "Baird and Wood were pawns to be sacrificed," my confidential source said.

However, with these nominees thrown overboard, the famed Clinton spin team went into overdrive with the nomination of Janet Reno. It was suggested that she was a tough, Eliot Ness-like prosecutor. After two failed nominations and with the standoff with the David Koresh cult in Waco, Texas escalating into a hot crisis, the White House press machine urged an immediate confirmation for the vacant Attorney General post.

Incredibly, the Clintons pulled it off, getting Janet Reno to head the Justice Department of the United States with virtually no vetting by the FBI, Congress, or the press.

Their control of Justice became complete when Web Hubbell, described as the president's best friend and an intimate of Hillary's from the Rose Law Firm, was named as Associate Attorney General.

-PJ

[malia]

BTTT!!! another WOW!