Reno's deputy accused of treating terror suspects as mere criminals
NEW YORK – A panel of Democratic Party legal heavyweights speculated Jamie Gorelick, former deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, could be appointed attorney general if Barack Obama were elected president.
In a panel chaired by Elena Kagan, dean and professor of law at Harvard Law School, Gorelick charged on the opening plenary panel of the American Constitution's Society two-day meeting in Washington that the Bush administration had politicized the operation of the Justice Department.
Gorelick said that if she were appointed attorney general in an Obama administration, her first job would be to 'fix' the Department of Justice.
'The Justice Department only functions well if the career lawyers have a voice and are actively consulted,' Gorelick told the 700 attendees. 'In the old order, if the White House wanted to know if something was lawful, it would call the Justice Department, and there would be a lot of discussion within the Justice Department at the attorney general's office. The legal opinion would be the product of the Justice Department's work.'
Later, Gorelick acknowledged the attorney general had to be close ideologically to the president in order to represent the administration's legal positions both to the public and through the office of solicitor general.
.... her participation as commissioner became controversial when Attorney General John Aschroft pinned blame on her for issuing a 1995 memo that established a 'wall' between the criminal and intelligence divisions, hindering the ability of the U.S. government to detect the Sept. 11 plot.Ashcroft contended the document by Gorelick [pdf file] helped establish the 'single greatest structural cause' for 9/11, which was 'the wall that segregated criminal investigators and intelligence agents.'
