Last week, former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy made a strong case that Jamie Gorelick had no place on the 9/11 Commission. Having been appointed and having already participated in the proceedings thus far, whether Gorelick should resign from the Commission altogether, or recuse herself from any consideration of the Justice Department’s role (or lack thereof) in the events leading up to the 9/11 attacks, was a judgment call in my mind. Eric Muller, for one, thought a sufficiently broad recusal would be sufficient, and in accordance with the Commission’s own policy (as Eugene noted here). To date Gorelick has only recused herself from consideration of her own actions and other measures taken while she was at the Justice Department.)
Until yesterday, I was inclined to agree with Muller. A mid-investigation resignation would have been overkill. But then Ms. Gorelick wrote this op-ed in the Washington Post explaining her decision to remain on the Commission and, more importantly for the recusal question, directly challenging the testimony of a witness who testified before the Commission. Specifically, she claims that Attorney General John Ashcroft’s account of the “wall” between law enforcement and anti-terrorism investigations, and the role of her 1995 memo in erecting or clarifying the “wall,” was “simply not true.” (See Randy’s post on the Ashcroft testimony here.) Yet rather than present her case in front of the commission, in public and under oath (a la Ashcroft, Rice, et al.), she is doing so in the national media while she remains a member of the Commission.
Re-enter Andrew McCarthy who, it is worth noting, was the assistant U.S. attorney who led the 1995 prosecution of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman for terror-related activities. Today McCarthy has another article explaining in detail that Gorelick’s op-ed misrepresents her own 1995 memo and, more importantly, buttresses the case against her place on the 9/11 Commission. Among other things, McCarthy notes that were Gorelick herself not on the Commission, there is no question that she would have been subpoenaed to testify about her memorandum. Instead, she is questioning witnesses, participating in the deliberations, and — on the Washington Post editorial page — attacking the testimony of Commission witnesses in an effort to defend her own role in the pre-9/11 intelligence lapses. After this performance, her continued presence on the Commission can only undermine its credibility and appearance of independence. It is time for Gorelick to go.
UPDATE: Old Benjamin at Advisory Opinion has similar thoughts — and reports on evidence the hole Gorelick has dug for herself is even deeper than I thought (see the first update).
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