NewsMax.com Wires
Friday, April 30, 2004

WASHINGTON – In his meeting Thursday with the Sept. 11 commission, President Bush expressed strong disapproval of his Department of Justice for releasing documents that Republicans are using to criticize a Democrat on the commission.

On Wednesday, some congressional Republicans declared that newly released material posted on the Justice Department Web site showed that panel member Jamie Gorelick was involved in action that might have weakened the nation's defenses against terrorism. Gorelick was the No. 2 official at the Justice Department during the Clinton administration.

"The president was disappointed" over the release of the documents on the department Web site and "we were not involved in that," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

Bush's disapproval was relayed to the department, and "the president does not believe we ought to be pointing fingers. ... We ought to be working together to help the commission complete its work," McClellan said.

Department spokesman Mark Corallo declined to comment.

Some congressional Republicans who requested the documents say Gorelick helped develop 1995 guidelines that made it difficult for FBI counterintelligence agents to share information with prosecutors and criminal investigators.

Former New York U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White, a Democrat who prosecuted several high-profile terrorism cases, wrote former Attorney General Janet Reno that "it is hard to be totally comfortable" with the legal guidelines because "the most effective way to combat terrorism is with as few labels and walls as possible."

While the White House first weighed in on the Justice Department's dispute with Gorelick on Thursday, Attorney General John Ashcroft kicked off the criticism two weeks ago by releasing a 1995 Gorelick memo that he said laid the groundwork for the wall separating criminal and intelligence investigations.

After Ashcroft released the first memo two weeks ago, House Judiciary Committee chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., called on Gorelick to resign from the commission, saying that the document presented a conflict of interest with her current duties.

Republican members of Congress, who requested the documents, have been calling for Gorelick herself to testify before the commission about the wall, which has been blamed for delays and communication breakdowns before the Sept. 11 attacks. Gorelick has refused to testify and has minimized the impact of the legal guidelines on information sharing.

The Justice Department began erecting the legal wall during the 1980s, interpreting a 1978 statute governing clandestine wiretaps.

Sensenbrenner says Gorelick's memo put in place a "heightened wall" prohibiting information sharing.

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