Yes, Clinton and Gore did abandon airport security planning for sake of campaign cash. But worse, they concealed the real cause of the crash, in no small part to justify that abandonment.
In fact, on the same day in September of 1996 that Al Gore sent the airline's lobbyist a letter signaling his intent to roll over, the National Transportation Safety Board reversed its spin and all but ruled out a bomb or missile strike [on TWA 800].
In our book, "First Strike," James Sanders and I make this arguably prophetic comment:
John Kerry seemed to have his sights on Al Gore's Achilles' heel. After the events of Sept. 11, the story of how Al Gore helped subvert the investigation into TWA 800 and undermine airport security may yet prove to be a career-killer. Kerry's "slips" may have put Gore out of the race even before he got in.
Two weeks after advanced copies of "First Strike" started circulating around Washington, Gore withdrew from the presidential race. His withdrawal shocked Washington. It did not shock Sanders and me. We expected it. Kerry plays hardball, too.
While I have your attention, Chris, there is one other person you need to put on the spot. Her name is Jamie Gorelick, former deputy attorney general under the figurehead, Janet Reno. You probably know her. Last week, UPI reported that the high-level 9-11 panel on which she sits "was rocked Thursday by the bizarre revelation that two of its senior officials were so closely involved in the events they are investigating that they have had to be interviewed as part of the inquiry." One of the two was Gorelick.
On Aug. 22, 1996, just a few days before the start of the Democratic National Convention, Ms. Gorelick oversaw a critical Justice Department meeting with the FBI. Immediately after this meeting, as it happened, all serious inquiry into the fate of TWA 800 came to an end.
On the next day, for instance, the FAA began to inquire whether any dog-training exercises had ever taken place on the plane that would become TWA 800. On the same day, as CNN reported, the FBI now claimed publicly for the first time that the explosive residue found along the right wing "could have been brought on the plane by a passenger and was not part of a bomb." Likewise, after the meeting, the FBI would do no more eyewitness interviews, at least not for the next two months. The Bureau only did a handful after that – and all of those for the wrong reasons.
So Gore and Gorelick are in collusion?
However we have a Memo here:
Procedures for Contacts Procedures for Contacts Between the FBI & CIA Investigations
Actually it is the part that of the FBI ...the FCI.... that does talk to the CIA I believe..
This is nothing but a "drive-by journalism" hitpiece by NewsCrack* dealer James Ridgeway.
*NewsCrack: soundbites from the Liberal News Ghetto. These are similar to five-dollar rocks of crack cocaine, and the habitual consumer eventually ends up broken and destitute, lying on a dirty mattress at DU.