Jamie Gorelick
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
Please see the discussion on the talk page. |
Jamie S. Gorelick (born May 6, 1950) is an American attorney and judicial officer who was Deputy Attorney General of the United States during the Clinton administration. She was also appointed by Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle to serve as a commissioner on the bipartisan National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, which sought to investigate the circumstances leading up to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Gorelick (IPA: [ˌgə ˈrɛl ɪk]) grew up in Great Neck, New York where she attended South High School.[1] She obtained her B.A. (magna cum laude) from Harvard University in 1972, where she was desigated Radcliffe Orator, and a J.D. (cum laude) from Harvard Law School in 1975.
Gorelick joined the Washington, D.C. law firm Miller, Cassidy, Larroca and Lewin in 1975 and worked for them as a litigator until 1993, except for 1979 to 1980 when she was an assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Energy. Gorelick was president of the District of Columbia Bar from 1992 to 1993.
Under the Clinton administration, Gorelick served as general counsel of the Department of Defense from 1993 to 1994, when she was appointed Deputy Attorney General of the United States, the No. 2 position in the Department of Justice. Gorelick served as Vice Chairman of the Federal National Mortgage Association from 1997 to 2003.
She is currently a law partner in the Washington office of WilmerHale and a non-executive director of the oilfield services provider Schlumberger Ltd.
[edit] 9/11 Commission
Critics say her duties on the commission represent a conflict of interest, contending that she is the single greatest cause of the organizational failures within intelligence that contributed to the September 11, 2001 attacks. Gorelick's defenders say she is the victim of a partisan political smear.
Gorelick's critics have accused Gorelick of helping to construct a barrier between federal agents and agencies that kept vital intelligence on terror theats from being shared. According to Former Attorney General John Ashcroft, Gorelick helped establish the "single greatest structural cause" for Sept. 11, which was "the wall that segregated criminal investigators and intelligence agents," See original Gorelick memo: [2].
However, the report from the 9/11 Commission asserts that the 'wall' limiting the ability of federal agencies to cooperate had existed since the 80's and is in fact not one singular wall but a series of restrictions passed over the course of over twenty years. All members of the 9/11 Commission agreed that Gorelick played no significant role in damaging information sharing on terrorist activities.
[edit] Origins of the wall
During the Richard Nixon Administation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency were used to spy on Nixon's domestic political critics.
"Our experience has been that the FBI labels of an investigation as intelligence or law enforcement can be quite arbitrary, depending upon the personnel involved and that the most effective way to combat terrorism is with as few labels and walls as possible so that wherever permissible, the right and left hands are communicating," wrote Clinton-appointed US Attorney Mary Jo White.
But Gorelick ignored this advice and went to great lengths to exceed the intent of legal precedent. [citation needed] A Gorelick 1995 memorandum states that the procedures her memorandum put in place "go beyond what is legally required...[to] prevent any risk of creating an unwarranted appearance that FISA is being used to avoid procedural safeguards which would apply in a criminal investigation." (Emphasis added.) The wall intentionally exceeded the requirements of FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978) and the then-existing federal case law.
Upon her selection to the commission, Ms. Gorelick not only did not recuse herself, but had not mentioned her own role in preventing law enforcement from sharing information about terrorist activities.[citation needed] Attorney General Ashcorft was incensed before the 9/11 commission to learn that the commission had not investigated or been told of Gorelick's memo or her role in overzealous enforcement of any notion of the "wall". This assertion was disputed by former senator Slade Gorton (R-WA), a member of the 9/11 Commission, who said, "nothing Jamie Gorelick wrote had the slightest impact on the Department of Defense or its willingness or ability to share intelligence information with other intelligence agencies." Gorton also asserted that "the wall" was a long-standing policy that had resulted from the Church committee in the 1970s, and that the policy only prohibits transfer of certain information from prosecutors to the intelligence services and never prohibited information flowing in the opposite direction.
Testifying before the commission, Attorney General John Ashcroft said, "Although you understand the debilitating impact of the wall, I cannot imagine that the commission knew about this memorandum, so I have declassified it for you and the public to review," he said. "Full disclosure compels me to inform you that its author is a member of this commission." For his outspoken manner and his support for the Patriot Act, many liberals defended Ms. Gorelick by calling Ashcroft a "fascist".
As the No. 2 person in the Clinton Justice Department, Ms. Gorelick was also instrumental in implementing prison privatization and policies supporting increases in US prison populations. See Dillon, Read & Co. Inc and the Aristocracy of Prison Profits [3]
[edit] External links
- Gorelick official biography from the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
- Gorelick biography from Wilmer Hale]]
- Gorelick's Wall, Opinion Journal (Wall Street Journal 4/15/04)
| Members of the 9/11 Commission |  |
|---|---|
| Kean (Chair) • Hamilton (Vice chair) Ben-Veniste • Fielding • Gorelick • Gorton • Kerrey • Lehman • Roemer • Thompson |
