Jamie Gorelick

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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 (pronounced /gəˈrɛlɪk/) grew up in Great Neck, New York where she attended South High School.[2] 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.

1 9/11 Commission
- 1.1 Possible Conflict of Interest
2 Prison Privatization
3 Charitable Work and Community Involvement
4 External links
5 References

[edit] 9/11 Commission

According to Gorelick's op ed letter in the Washington Post^[1] she states that: "At last week's hearing, Attorney General John Ashcroft, facing criticism, asserted that "the single greatest structural cause for September 11 was the wall that segregated criminal investigators and intelligence agents" and that I built that wall through a March 1995 memo. See original memo: [3].

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.^[2]

[edit] Possible Conflict of Interest

A 1995 Department of Justice memorandum states that the procedures her memorandum put in place, for the investigation of the first WTC bombing "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) for the purposes of criminal investigations, and the then-existing federal case law. These rules were, shortly after their creation, expanded to regulate such communications in future counter-terrorism investigations.^[3]

Ms. Gorelick eventually recused herself from reviewing her own role in the regulation of information about terrorist activities.^[4] Attorney General Ashcroft 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 regarding 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.^[5]

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."^[6]

[edit] Prison Privatization

Ms. Gorelick was deeply involved in implementing prison privatization and policies that have enabled increases in US prison populations through privatization.^[7]

[edit] Charitable Work and Community Involvement

Ms. Gorelick has served on the boards of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Urban Institute, the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.^[8]