White House Criticizes Justice for Publishing Memos

[maddezmom]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Thursday lodged a rare complaint with the Justice Department for making public documents that blame a Democratic member of the panel investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks for hampering terror investigations.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, in a highly unusual move, said President Bush was disappointed Attorney General John Ashcroft's department had declassified and made public 29 pages of documents relating to Democratic commissioner Jamie Gorelick's time as deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration.

The department posted the documents on its Web site late on Wednesday as "supplementary material" to Ashcroft's testimony to the panel earlier this month.

"We were not involved in it," McClellan said. "The president was disappointed about that .... He's disappointed that that information was placed on their Web site like that."

The documents include instructions on separation of foreign counterintelligence and criminal investigations, reactions to the instructions and even hand-written notes from Gorelick regarding the so-called wall that governs intelligence uses.

~snip~
more: http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4992199

And then bush winks at Asscrack and says...it okay don't worry about it bud.

[Just Me]

1. Trying to do a little PR to recoup total loss of credibility, eh?

Actually,...they are merely drawing more attention to the whole bullshitzka about Jamie.

[w4rma]

2. And Reuters writes the story exactly the way that want it. (nt)

[hughee99]

3. This is all PR

I was in favor of making the memos public... and in the spirit of openness, * should now make his testimony public.

[MO_Dem]

4. Wink, wink, nod, nod,

GeeDub says to Asscroft, "Your job is safe for as long as mine is".

Dang, there I go making that recurrent typo again!

[leetrisck]

5. Baloney - in one of the many books I've

read recently, it points out that bush & co encourage their higher ups to "out" things, they will speak out in public against, and then protect them - like Ashcroft.

[Claire Beth]

6. I don't believe him for a second! n/t

[Ravy]

7. The Attorney General can declassify documents?

That is one I need to look up.

[Ravy]

8. N/M.. looks like he can.

[TahitiNut]

11. Only because they're who classified them in the first place.

The process for declassifying documents usually requires the person, agency, or department that originally classified them to approve/review their declassification. While there are, of course, exceptions this is the 'normal' process. (It's often one of the FOIA bottlenecks.)

[0007]

9. Bet this one will piss the freepers off big time, 'eh?

[G_j]

10. NYT- White House Criticizes Justice Dept. Over Papers

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/politics/30ASHC.html?ei=5062&en=7c06030d2f2fe6ac&ex=1083902400&pagewanted=print&position=

April 30, 2004
White House Criticizes Justice Dept. Over Papers

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

ASHINGTON, April 29 — President Bush was disappointed with the Justice Department for publicly releasing documents that appeared to take aim at a Democratic member of the Sept. 11 commission for her counterterrorism work a decade ago, the White House said Thursday.

"The president does not believe we ought to be pointing fingers in this time period," Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, told reporters, "We ought to be working together to help the commission complete its work."

In an administration that prides itself on its unified message, it is rare for the White House publicly to chide any of the president's senior advisers. Mr. McClellan's rebuke came in response to the Justice Department's release on Wednesday of 29 pages of declassified documents related to the department's internal discussions in 1995 about the sharing of intelligence information among prosecutors and investigators. A Republican senator said on Wednesday that he and other lawmakers had asked that the documents be released.

Attorney General John Ashcroft has publicly accused Jamie Gorelick, a Democratic member of the Sept. 11 commission who was the No. 2 official in the Justice Department in 1995, of building up the "wall" that restricted the flow of information in terrorism cases before the Sept. 11 attacks.

..more..

[Clyde39]

12. Blame is central to Ashcroft's persona

The more I read about this man to more I'm aware of just how one-deminsional he is. When he covered the statue it was obvious that he had major "issues"!