Last summer, I called upon Jamie Gorelick to resign as a Commissioner on the 9/11 Commission due to a conflict of interest.
Gorelick, formerly the number two person in the Clinton Justice Department is a Democratic appointee to the Commission charged with preparing a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Gorelick was an inappropriate choice for that position because she is a partner in the Washington law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering. According to Newsweek, Wilmer, Cutler represents Prince Mohammed al Faisal in the suit by the 9/11 families. The families contend that al Faisal has legal responsibility for the 9/11 attacks.
Given that the findings of the commission, to be prepared at least in part by Gorelick, could impact the outcome of litigation in which Gorelick’s firm has an interest, Gorelick remaining on the Commission posed a clear conflict of interest.
Gorelick failed to heed my advice and remained a 9/11 Commissioner. Now a second, even more egregious conflict of interest has arisen requiring Gorelick to resign. The Executive Director of the Commission, Phillip Zelikow, must also resign for the same reasons.
Via Julia, I located this UPI story. UPI reports that Gorelick, as well as Zelikow have been called as witnesses before Commission investigators. Gorelick’s testimony appears to relate to her position in the Clinton Justice Department while Zelikow’s testimony appears to relate to his position on the Bush-Cheney transition team.
Gorelick is charged with preparing a complete account of the events leading up to 9/11. To prepare that report, Gorelick will have to assess the credibility of the evidence. Part of that evidence is her own testimony. Gorelick, therefore, is in the position of deciding whether or not her own testimony is to be believed.
Further, it is possible that Gorelick’s decision as to whether or not to credit her own testimony will impact a civil suit being defended by Gorelick’s firm. Is it possible for the relationship to become more incestuous? Lewis Carroll would have rejected that scenario as unbelievable. Gorelick must resign immediately.
Phillip Zelikow must resign as Executive Director of the Commission. Zelikow, a history professor at the University of Virginia, has also been called as a witness. UPI reports:
The panel set up to investigate why the United States failed to prevent the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, faced angry questions Thursday after revelations that two of its own senior officials were so closely involved in the events under investigation that they have been interviewed as part of the inquiry.Philip Zelikow, the commission's executive director, worked on the Bush-Cheney transition team as the new administration took power, advising his longtime associate and former boss, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, on the incoming National Security Council…
The families have said for many months that they are not happy with Zelikow's role, which they argue creates at least an appearance of a conflict of interest. They were furious Thursday that they learned from the newspapers he had given evidence.
"Did he interview himself about his own role in the failures that left us defenseless?" asked Lori Van Auken, the widow of Kenneth. "This is bizarre."
Zelikow -- an historian based at the Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia -- has also come under fire from some critics for his close ties to senior administration officials. He has had a longstanding relationship with Rice, who hired him to work for her when she was a White House official in the first Bush administration. The two have written a book together.
More recently, some relatives have accused him of being in touch with White House political supreme Karl Rove -- the man widely believed to be the most powerful figure in the administration.
Zelikow was not available to answer questions Thursday, but Felzenberg did not deny the allegation.
The question of the transition is a significant one, because critics of President Bush contend that the incoming administration "dropped the ball" on the fight against Osama bin Laden, which had been ramping up under President Clinton, especially after a suicide attack by his al-Qaida network nearly destroyed the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000.According to one former Bush White House official, the incoming administration downgraded the interagency committee that handles the nation's counter-terrorism policy and operations on a day-to-day basis.
The Counter-Terrorism Security Group had, under Clinton, reported directly to the so-called Principles' Committee, the meeting of Cabinet-level officials that sets policy for presidential consideration.
"They stopped it reporting directly," the former official told UPI on condition of anonymity. "It had to report to deputies. ... It slowed down consideration of policy initiatives quite a bit."
Where a commissioner or staff member has a close personal relationship with an individual, or either supervised or was supervised by an individual, the commissioner or staff member should not play a primary role in the Commission interview of that person.
It is harder to get a more “primary role” in an interview than that of the person providing the answers. The "close personal relationship" test is presumably satisfied as Gorelick and Zelikow can each be assumed to have a close personal relationship with themselves.
Perhaps a Chinese wall could prevent Zelikow from participating in the portion of the investigation surrounding the transition team as it relates to others. It is impossible, however, for a Chinese wall to prevent either the “primary role” or the “close personal relationship” requirements from being satisfied when the staffer and/or commissioner is also the witness. The only course is for both Gorelick and Zeilkow to resign.
The credibility of the Commission is central to its mission. Having Gorelick act as both judge and witness at the same time her firm is defending a person the families charge with legal responsibility for the attacks simply destroys the credibility of whatever report emerges. Similarly, having an executive director who used to work for Condi Rice, was part of the transition team being investigated for dropping the ball on terrorism, has chats with Karl Rove, and is both the chief investigator and a witness undermines the credibility of the Commission. It is just not right.
While the credibility of the Commission is important to all Americans, it is critical to the families of the 9/11 victims. How do they view the news of the conflicts?
UPI reports:
"This is beginning to look like a whitewash," Kristen Breitweizer, who lost her husband Ron in tower two of the World Trade Center, told United Press International.
Update: The New York Times has now confirmed that Gorelick and Zelikow are the two officials of the Commission with the greatest access to highly classified White House documents:
Mr. Zelikow and Ms. Gorelick are the sole commission officials known to have been interviewed. They are also the only two commission officials with wide access to highly classified White House documents.
It is imperative not only that Gorelick and Zelikow resign but that the other Commission members be provided access to those documents. For any part of the information to be availabe only to the persons with conflicts of interests is simply unacceptable.
Posted by Dwight Meredith at January 16, 2004 03:48 PM | TrackBackThe other amazing tidbit from the UPI report is the following tinfoil worthy gem:
"Relatives say the news about Gorelick and Zelikow is a particularly sharp blow to the commission's credibility because they are the two officials to whom the White House has granted the greatest access to the most secret and sensitive national security documents, the presidential daily briefings."
Is this confirmable...?
Posted by: canucklehead at January 16, 2004 06:11 PMCouldn't someone file a complaint with the appropriate state bar authority regarding Gorelick, or is her activity on the 9/11 commission technically not the practice of law? I guess at a minimum the disciplinary authority could decide if it is or not. Seems to be if Bill Clinton could draw state bar discipline over the Monica affair, this egregious conflict can also be sanctioned.
Really, I thought it had to be hyperbole when you said there is an even more egregious conflict of interest than the one Gorelick already had. But you weren't kidding. Damn.
Posted by: Luis at January 17, 2004 11:08 AM The writer is correct that it is a conflict of interest for a man who co-wrote a book with Condoleezza and worked for her to discern the truth behind the 9-11-22001 attacks.
Condoleezza Rice said in May, 2002 "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile." CNN and others have documented over a dozen instances in which we were warned by our allies and by earlier U.S. investigative commissions of terrorist plots to fly airliners into buildings. The most recent warnings were during the Summer in which the 9-11 attacks occurred. The last of these warnings was in August 2001, when Zakarias Moussaoui's flight simulator instructor reported his suspicious behavior to the Minneapolis FBI. The instructor said that he thought Moussaoui might try to"fly an airplane into the World Trade Center." His intuition was correct.
The competent Minnesota FBI agents arrested Moussaoui on immigration violations, but the Washington, D.C. FBI office refused twice to EVEN ASK A JUDGE for a search warrant for Moussaoui's laptop computer. After 9-11-2001, the FBI did not criminally charge or even fire the FBI employee who thwarted the Minnesota agents from obtaining a search warrant. THEY PROMOTED HIM.
Commission member Zelikow could be expected to try to cover up Condoleezza's personal incompetence and dishonesty. She had security clearance to read each of the 14 warnings over the years about airplanes into buildings. She was, and amazingly still is, National Security Advisor. She says she did not see any of these warnings. In September of 2002 Margaret Warner of PBS Newshour asked Rice a question. Warner said the terrorists "talked a lot about using airplanes as weapons. Given everything that has come out, do you still believe that the attacks were unpredictable?" CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Yes, I do still believe that the attacks were unpredictable. Look, the 1998 reports that apparently some intelligence analysts looked at and made an analysis that perhaps al-Qaida wanted to slam planes into buildings were simply not made available to the Bush Administration." This is a lie. Why should a man closely tied to this person be on a commission which is sworn to be independent and seeking to protect THE UNITED STATES, not to protect those who don't seek out the information they need to do their job.
I guess the big question is.Who is responsible for Jamie S Gorelick's appointment to the commission?
It was so evident from the Get Go tht it was a recipe for failure. Was that the original design? Thart way no one has to take the blame??
Once again the enemies of freedom seem to triumph. How sad. FFC