Can't Stop Won't Stop, Part 2

The ConWeb still can't stop lying about Jamie Gorelick.

As ConWebWatch has documented (twice), NewsMax and WorldNetDaily have repeated false accusations blaming Gorelick, the deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, for writing a 1995 memo that purportedly erected a "wall" keeping intelligence and law enforcement authorities from sharing information. Such sharing, the thinking goes, would have prevented 9/11 had it been allowed. In fact, that "wall" was erected in the late 1970s, and the Bush administration's Justice Department reaffirmed it shortly before 9/11.

Related article on ConWebWatch: Stumbling on the Chinese Wall Can't Stop Won't Stop

Never ones to let the facts get in the way of a good story, the denizens of the ConWeb have found a way to expand that lie, wrapping it around the accusations made regarding a classified defense intelligence operation called Able Danger. Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania has claimed that Able Danger identified Mohammed Atta as a possible threat a year before he led the 9/11 hijackings -- a claim still lacking hard evidence -- but that information was not passed along to law enforcement officials.

However, Gorelick's memo applied only to the FBI and the Justice Department, not military and defense operations, so it had no bearing on whether or not the purported Able Danger findings were shared.

But that's not what you'll read on the ConWeb, which has added this deception to its original lies about the "wall":

• "But the critical [Able Danger] information was not acted on, at least in part, because of prohibitions against intelligence sharing implemented by former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, who was reportedly installed in her post at the insistence of then-first lady Hillary Clinton." -- NewsMax, Aug. 9
• "The revelation that the 9/11 Commission covered up [U.S. attorney Mary Jo] White's full account comes on the heels of news that Gorelick's wall may have prevented the FBI from learning that lead 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi had entered the U.S. and had been identified by military intelligence as terrorist threats a year before the attacks." -- NewsMax, Aug. 12
• "Asked about reports that restrictions on intelligence sharing implemented by Clinton Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick played a role in the disastrous intelligence breakdown, Weldon said, 'I think that needs to be investigated.'" -- NewsMax, Aug. 11
• "["Jersey Girl" Lorie] Van Auken offered no comment on reports that the Gorelick restrictions bottled up critical intelligence on 9/11 conspirators Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, whose hijacked planes destroyed the World Trade Center." -- NewsMax, Aug. 11
• "Rep. Curt Weldon blames the so-called "firewall" erected by the Clinton Justice Department that myopically prohibited sharing intelligence with law enforcement. He is not the Lone Ranger. Such a territorial imperative exceeds even the most egregious bureaucratic brain flatulence." -- Geoff Metcalf, NewsMax, Aug. 15
• "There is growing concern that the Justice Department blocked the transmission of the intelligence from the Defense Department to the FBI because of the 'wall' placed between foreign intelligence-gathering agencies and domestic law-enforcement agencies by Clinton administration Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick." -- WorldNetDaily, Aug. 13 and Aug. 17
• "There is an obvious and glaring answer to these questions. The CIA and the Defense Department had been ordered not to share information with the FBI. The FBI and CIA were deliberately blocked from this kind of cooperation by the 'wall' erected between them through a set of Justice Department directives issued by Deputy Attorney General Gorelick. In effect, the Clinton Justice Department had made it illegal for that kind of sharing of information between the agencies." -- Joseph Farah, WorldNetDaily, Aug. 15
• "'… [W]hy did [the commission] ignore the Able Danger operation in their deliberations?' asked Captain's Quarters blogger Ed Morrissey, as highlighted by columnist Michelle Malkin. 'It would emphasize that the problem was not primarily operational, as the commission made it seem, but primarily political – and that the biggest problem was the enforced separation between law enforcement and intelligence operations upon which the Clinton Department of Justice insisted. The hatchet person for that policy sat on the Commission itself: Jamie S. Gorelick.' It was Gorelick who, as deputy attorney general in the Clinton Justice Department, established the wall of silence between intel and law enforcement." -- WorldNetDaily, Aug. 11
• "Jamie Gorelick, a 911 commissioner and former assistant attorney general under President Clinton, had worked directly on matters related to the investigation. She was the author of the 1995 Guidelines and procedures that imposed strict barriers, more than the law required, between law enforcement and the intelligence communities, making it that much more difficult for the two to exchange information. Could those rules have been responsible for the information about Atta failing to make it to proper law enforcement authorities?" -- Roger Aronoff, Accuracy in Media, Aug. 26

Sadly, this is typical behavior for the ConWeb. The lies continue, and there is no interest in telling the truth, especially if makes a conservative enemy look good. Call that a lot of things, but journalism isn't one of them.