{"id":10092,"date":"2012-01-09T21:46:40","date_gmt":"2012-01-10T04:46:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/?p=10092"},"modified":"2025-02-03T21:48:22","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T04:48:22","slug":"huffpost-jared-kushners-lawyer-is-ex-clinton-deputy-ag-jamie-gorelick-author-of-the-infamous-wall-memo-who-facilitated-the-deportation-of-osama-bin-ladens-brother-in-law-from-u-s-custody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/?p=10092","title":{"rendered":"Jared Kushner&#8217;s lawyer is ex-Deputy AG Jamie Gorelick, author of the infamous &#8220;wall memo,&#8221; who facilitated the deportation of bin Laden&#8217;s in-law from U.S. custody"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Jared%20Kushner%27s%20lawyer%20is%20ex-Deputy%20AG%20Jamie%20Gorelick%2C%20author%20of%20the%20infamous%20%22wall%20memo%2C%22%20who%20facilitated%20the%20deportation%20of%20bin%20Laden%27s%20in-law%20from%20U.S.%20custody\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p><strong>By Peter Lance January 9th, 2017.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/entry\/58745bdce4b0a5e600a78e51?timestamp=1484023222477\"><strong>The Huffington Post<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0When\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/politics-news\/source-jared-kushner-serve-trump-senior-adviser-n704786\"><strong>NBC News reported<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0today that Jared Kushner, Donald Trump&#8217;s son-in-law, would soon be a &#8220;top advisor&#8221; to the President-elect, his principal spokesperson asserting that Mr. Kushner &#8220;is committed to complying with federal ethics laws&#8221; was none other than ex-9\/11 Commissioner and Clinton administration Deputy A.G.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jamie_Gorelick\"><strong>Jamie Gorelick,<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0author of the controversial &#8220;wall memo&#8221; which many Republicans blamed for the &#8220;stove-piping&#8221; between intelligence agencies leading up to the 9\/11 attacks.<\/p>\n<p>But as I documented in the fully annotated 2009 edition of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2iO9cJo\"><strong>Triple Cross,<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0my third investigative book for HarperCollins exploring the epic failures by the FBI and Justice Department during that period, Mrs. Gorelick was also largely responsible for allowing Osama bin Laden&#8217;s brother-in-law\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mohammed_Jamal_Khalifa\"><strong>Mohammed Jamal Khalifa,<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0who was in U.S. custody at the time to go free.<\/p>\n<p>What follows are key excerpts on those two extraordinary lapses by the lawyer who today insists that Ivanka Trump&#8217;s husband will tow the line when it comes to his many potential conflicts-of-interest as reported in January 8th&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/investigatingtrump.com\/nyt-jared-kushner-trump-in-law-and-adviser-chases-a-chinese-deal\/\"><strong>New York Times.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>THE &#8220;WALL MEMO&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After 9\/11, a number of senior Justice Department officials, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft, blamed the intelligence \u201cdysfunction\u201d on \u201cthe wall,\u201d a reputed legal barrier separating FBI criminal investigators of\u00a0<em>past<\/em>\u00a0terror cases from those in the FBI\u2019s Intelligence squads whose job it was to prevent\u00a0<em>future<\/em>\u00a0acts. This alleged \u201cwall\u201d was embodied in that infamous<a href=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/Triple_Cross_Appendices_Wall_Memo.pdf\"><strong>\u00a0March 1995 memo<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0by then Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick.<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/investigatingtrump.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Screen-Shot-2017-01-09-at-4.14.22-PM.png\" alt=\"screen-shot-2017-01-09-at-4-14-22-pm\" width=\"144\" height=\"134\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Testifying before the 9\/11 Commission in 2004, Ashcroft claimed that \u201cthe single greatest structural cause for September 11 was the wall that segregated criminal investigators and intelligence agents.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gorelick herself, he alleged, had \u201cbuilt that wall with that March 1995 memo.\u201d At the time he made that statement, Gorelick was on the dais facing Ashcroft as one of the ten 9\/11 Commissioners.\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/investigatingtrump.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Screen-Shot-2017-01-09-at-4.38.27-PM.png\" alt=\"screen-shot-2017-01-09-at-4-38-27-pm\" width=\"374\" height=\"465\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/investigatingtrump.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Screen-Shot-2017-01-09-at-4.38.47-PM.png\" alt=\"screen-shot-2017-01-09-at-4-38-47-pm\" width=\"368\" height=\"462\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Five days later, in her own defense, Gorelick wrote a Washington Post\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/archive\/opinions\/2004\/04\/18\/the-truth-about-the-wall\/9b03544e-dfc8-4914-a3a3-e3f3b58c80da\/?utm_term=.c30ebc1bbea9\"><strong>op-ed piece<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a>insisting that she \u201cdid not invent the \u2018wall,\u2019 which is not a wall but a series of procedures implementing a 1978 statute.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Whatever its origin, by the time the 9\/11 Commission Report was published in July 2004, both sides of the debate seemed to agree that \u201cstove piping,\u201d or the compartmentalization, of intelligence was a key factor in the breakdown that led to two 767\u2019s slicing into the Twin Towers and a 757 ripping a hole in the Pentagon.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/investigatingtrump.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Screen-Shot-2017-01-09-at-5.13.16-PM.png\" alt=\"screen-shot-2017-01-09-at-5-13-16-pm\" width=\"139\" height=\"183\" \/>But in many ways, Mrs. Gorelick&#8217;s memo had a more personal effect. It served as the legal basis for a kind of disconnection of &#8220;the dots&#8221; that might have exposed her own negligence in helping to spring bin Laden&#8217;s brother-in-law from U.S. custody, where his belongings contained a potential treasure trove of al Qaeda-related intelligence.<\/p>\n<p><strong>THE DEPORTATION OF KHALIFA<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On December 16, 1994, five days after 1993 World Trade Center bomber\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/?p=25\"><strong>Ramzi Yousef<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0planted an explosive device aboard Philippine Airlines Flight 434, the agents in the FBI\u2019s San Francisco office made an extraordinary seizure. Khalifa,<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>bin Laden\u2019s best friend and former roommate, was captured at a Holiday Inn just twenty-six miles from al Qaeda spy\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/?p=1703\"><strong>Ali Mohamed\u2019s<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0house in Santa Clara, California.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/investigatingtrump.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Screen-Shot-2017-01-09-at-5.12.59-PM.png\" alt=\"screen-shot-2017-01-09-at-5-12-59-pm\" width=\"137\" height=\"159\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The arrest took place in Morgan Hills, the very Silicon Valley town where Special Agent John Zent, Mohammed&#8217;s FBI handler lived. If this arrest had been properly followed up by the Bureau and the Justice Department, it could have led to the seizure of both Ramzi Yousef and his uncle Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and stopped the 9\/11 plot dead in its tracks.<\/p>\n<p>But what followed was a series of missteps and bad decisions at the highest levels of the State and Justice Departments that would have a catastrophic impact on America\u2019s ability to end bin Laden\u2019s jihad against America.<\/p>\n<p>Khalifa, thirty-seven, was born in Medina, Saudi Arabia. A short, wiry man with a close-cropped beard, he used aliases including Abdul Bara, Abu Baraa, and Jimmy Jack.\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/investigatingtrump.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Screen-Shot-2017-01-09-at-4.39.47-PM.png\" alt=\"screen-shot-2017-01-09-at-4-39-47-pm\" width=\"138\" height=\"163\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Khalifa was so close to the Saudi billionaire that he\u2019d married bin Laden\u2019s sister. From 1983 to 1991, he had been trusted by al Qaeda with running the Philippines branch of the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), one of their key NGOs with links to the Hamas terrorist organization.<\/p>\n<p>The Philippines National Police (PNP) believed that Khalifa was bankrolling the Yousef-KSM-Murad-Wali Khan Manila cell via Konsonjaya, a cutout company in Malaysia.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/investigatingtrump.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Screen-Shot-2017-01-09-at-4.18.01-PM.png\" alt=\"screen-shot-2017-01-09-at-4-18-01-pm\" width=\"453\" height=\"114\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The PNP also suspected Khalifa of having \u201ccontacts with Islamic extremist and fundamentalist groups\u2026in Iraq, Jordan, Turkey, Russia, Malaysia, United Arab Emirates, Romania, Lebanon, Syria, Pakistan, Albania, the Netherlands, and Morocco.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>More significant, he also had ties to al Gamma\u2019a Islamyah (IG),\u00a0<strong>Blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman\u2019<\/strong>s Egyptian-based terror group. Khalifa\u2019s business card was discovered in a search of Sheik Omar&#8217;s residence the year before, and he was one of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/172_unindicted_co-conspirators_Day_of_Terror.pdf\"><strong>172 unindicted co-conspirators<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a>named by prosecutors Patrick Fitzgerald and Andrew McCarthy in the Day of Terror case, which was about to get underway in The Southern District of New York in early 1995.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/investigatingtrump.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Screen-Shot-2017-01-09-at-5.13.34-PM.png\" alt=\"screen-shot-2017-01-09-at-5-13-34-pm\" width=\"141\" height=\"176\" \/>At the time of his arrest in Morgan Hills, Khalifa was traveling with Mohammed Loay Bayazid, aka Abu Rida al-Suri, a naturalized U.S. citizen who worked in the Chicago office of the Benevolence International Foundation, the al Qaeda NGO. In the early 1990s, Bayazid had attempted to obtain uranium for Osama bin Laden.<\/p>\n<p>Further, although Khalifa was carrying a Saudi passport, he\u2019d flown into the Bay Area from London carrying a Philippines Special Return Certificate indicating that he was heading back to Manila.<\/p>\n<p><strong>THE BIGGEST AL QAEDA FISH CAUGHT BY THE FEDS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>With his direct connections to bin Laden, the blind Sheikh, and Ramzi Yousef, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa was the biggest al Qaeda fish the Feds had caught since Abdel Rahman himself in July 1993.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s difficult to express just how many dots the FBI and Justice Department prosecutors could have connected with Khalifa, at the time of his arrest, given the contacts he had,\u201d says Paul Thompson, terrorism researcher and author of\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2iK9VZx\">The Terror Timeline<\/a>,<\/strong>\u00a0who has compiled a database of more than 10,000 open-source al Qaeda\u2013related articles and court pleadings on the nonprofit website\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.historycommons.org\/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&amp;other_al-qaeda_operatives=complete_911_timeline_mohammed_jamal_khalifa\"><strong>www.historycommons.org.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>After serving a search warrant on Khalifa, the Feds found files in his Newton PDA that listed one of his aliases as Abu Baraa. That same name had been scrawled inside one of the bomb manuals carried by Yousef\u2019s traveling partner Mohammed Ajaj, who had been convicted earlier in 1994 for the World Trade Center bombing.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/investigatingtrump.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Screen-Shot-2017-01-09-at-6.26.30-PM.png\" alt=\"screen-shot-2017-01-09-at-6-26-30-pm\" width=\"143\" height=\"185\" \/>Searching Khalifa\u2019s belongings, the FBI and INS discovered Islamic literature tying him to IIRO. Also in the PDA were Wali Khan\u2019s beeper number and a number in Pakistan that Yousef had used to call Manila. Encrypted phone numbers tied to Khalifa\u2019s NGO were later found on Yousef\u2019s Toshiba laptop, and when Wali Khan was finally arrested, he was found to \u00a0be carrying multiple numbers for MJK.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/investigatingtrump.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Screen-Shot-2017-01-09-at-5.13.25-PM.png\" alt=\"screen-shot-2017-01-09-at-5-13-25-pm\" width=\"141\" height=\"180\" \/>Given his links to Yousef\u2019s cells in New York and Manila, Khalifa was\u00a0<strong>the human linchpin<\/strong>\u00a0who could have furnished the FBI with proof of Yousef\u2019s two planned attacks on the World Trade Center: his 1993 bombing, executed with the help of Ali Mohamed\u2019s trained jihadis, and the planes-as-missiles operation, conceived in Manila, that Yousef\u2019s uncle KSM would ultimately carry out on 9\/11.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, Khalifa was motivated to talk. At the time of his arrest in Morgan Hills, he was wanted in Jordan for a series of al Qaeda related bombings. As a State Department cable after his arrest stated:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFYI, Osama bin Laden\u2019s brother-in-law, Muhammad Jamal Khalifah [sic], was arrested in California on 12\/16. REFTEL (reference telegram) refers to Khalifa as a known financier of terrorist operations and an officer of an Islamic NGO in the Philippines that is a known Hamas front. He is under indictment in Jordan in connection with a series of cinema bombings earlier this year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/investigatingtrump.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Screen-Shot-2017-01-09-at-5.19.14-PM.png\" alt=\"screen-shot-2017-01-09-at-5-19-14-pm\" width=\"149\" height=\"178\" \/>On the day of his arrest in mid-December, the State Department designated Khalifa a \u201cDeportable Alien.\u201d A deputy assistant secretary of state issued a certificate of revocation for Khalifa\u2019s visa for having \u201cengaged in terrorist activity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A week later, on December 23, Philip C. Wilcox Jr., the State Department\u2019s coordinator for counterterrorism,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/peterlance.com\/Triple_Cross_Appendices_Khalifa_letter.pdf\"><strong>wrote to advise<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0an immigration judge that Khalifa had \u201cengaged in serious terrorist offenses\u201d and that his release \u201cwould endanger U.S. national security\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He noted that \u201cin the last two days there has been a significant additional development in this matter. On December 21 the State Security Court in Jordan found Mohammed Jamal Khalifa guilty of the charges for which he was indicted and imposed a capital sentence.\u201d<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/investigatingtrump.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Screen-Shot-2017-01-09-at-4.41.26-PM.png\" alt=\"screen-shot-2017-01-09-at-4-41-26-pm\" width=\"374\" height=\"536\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>After a four-month trial involving twenty-five suspected terrorists, the Jordanians had condemned Khalifa. Now in the safety of U.S. custody, he was facing execution if he returned to Amman.<\/p>\n<p><strong>KHALIFA&#8217;S LINKS TO WORLD&#8217;S MOST WANTED MAN<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The details in Khalifa\u2019s Newton address book should have led the FBI directly to Ramzi Yousef, the world\u2019s most wanted man\u2014who, unbeknownst to the Feds, was responsible for the PAL bomb plot that went down just five days before Khalifa\u2019s seizure, and who was now contemplating three mass-casualty terrorist attacks. Further, for the two bin Laden offices of origin in New\u00a0York, (the FBI&#8217;s New York Office and the SDNY) Khalifa\u2019s web of associations should have underscored al Qaeda\u2019s direct command and control of Yousef\u2019s New York and Philippines operations.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/investigatingtrump.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Screen-Shot-2017-01-09-at-4.39.35-PM.png\" alt=\"screen-shot-2017-01-09-at-4-39-35-pm\" width=\"159\" height=\"154\" \/>As to what the Feds could expect to get out of MJK, his death sentence in Jordan meant that he was motivated to talk, rather than risk extradition. But the Feds never got a chance to question him.<\/p>\n<p><strong>On January 5, 1995, a decision was made by Secretary of State Warren Christopher, and supported by Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, that ranks as one of the most profound intelligence errors committed by any U.S. official in the years leading up to 9\/11.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/investigatingtrump.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Screen-Shot-2017-01-09-at-4.14.12-PM.png\" alt=\"screen-shot-2017-01-09-at-4-14-12-pm\" width=\"141\" height=\"148\" \/>\u201cJordan is aware of Mr. Khalifa\u2019s presence in the United States,\u201d Christopher wrote to Attorney General Janet Reno, \u201cand has asked for our assistance in sending him to Jordan so that he may be brought to justice. To permit Mr. Khalifa to remain in the United States in these circumstances would potentially be seen as an affront to Jordan and at odds with many of the basic elements of our cooperative bilateral relationship [and] potentially undermine our longstanding and successful policy of international legal cooperation to bring about the prosecution of terrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Christopher\u2019s legal theory seemed part of a determined effort by top officials at Justice and State to craft an exit for Khalifa. Philip Wilcox\u2019s letter of just two weeks before, and the certificate revoking MJK\u2019s visa, had cited him for \u201cterrorist activity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But according to Khalifa\u2019s lawyer Marc Van Der Hout, \u201cThey dropped that halfway through his bond hearing. Then they [substituted] a charge that hadn\u2019t been used before\u2014enacted in 1990\u2014that a person can be deported if the Secretary of State has reasons to believe the alien\u2019s presence or activities could have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences. This is the first time they ever tried to use that statute.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Christopher\u2019s letter made no mention of Khalifa\u2019s crucial value to the United States in its own terror fight. Keep in mind that the FBI found evidence in his PDA linking MJK directly to Yousef, the mastermind of the WTC bombing, who was at that very moment the object of a worldwide manhunt. That discovery alone should have far outweighed Jordan\u2019s desire to punish Khalifa for a series of movie theater bombings.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>GORELICK SENDS AN \u201cEXPEDITE\u201d LETTER<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Nonetheless, the very next day, Jamie Gorelick\u2014serving in Janet Reno\u2019s absence as acting attorney general\u2014sent an\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/intelwire.egoplex.com\/gorelickmemo-lores.jpg\"><strong>\u201cexpedite\u201d letter<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0in support of Christopher\u2019s deportation request.<\/p>\n<p>Strangely, Gorelick began the letter by noting that, pursuant to federal law, \u201cthe deportation of an alien in the United States\u2026shall be directed by the Attorney General to a country promptly designated by the alien if that country is willing to accept him into its territory unless the Attorney General in his discretion concludes that deportation to such country would be prejudicial to the interests of the United States\u201d<br \/>\n<strong><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/investigatingtrump.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Screen-Shot-2017-01-09-at-5.52.17-PM.png\" alt=\"screen-shot-2017-01-09-at-5-52-17-pm\" width=\"429\" height=\"554\" \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s difficult to fathom how it could have been in the interests of the United States to allow the deportation of Osama bin Laden\u2019s brother-in-law, a man the State Department had just named as \u201ca terrorist.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But Gorelick went on record personally as supporting Christopher\u2019s recommendation, concluding that \u201cshould deportation be ordered, deporting Mohammed Khalifa to any country other than Jordan would be prejudicial to the interests of the United States and that he should be deported to Jordan pursuant to Section 243 (a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/investigatingtrump.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Screen-Shot-2017-01-09-at-5.40.14-PM.png\" alt=\"screen-shot-2017-01-09-at-5-40-14-pm\" width=\"146\" height=\"196\" \/>Rather than keeping him in the United States so that he could be debriefed by FBI agents, Gorelick was signing off on a decision first pressed by Warren Christopher who was feeling pressured from the Jordanians to extradite the accused terrorist financier.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI remember people at CIA who were ripshit at the time\u201d over the decision, says Jacob L. Boesen, an Energy Department analyst then working at the CIA\u2019s Counter Terrorism Center. \u201cNot even speaking in retrospect, but contemporaneous with what the intelligence community knew about bin Laden, Khalifa\u2019s deportation was unreal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>From the time of his arrest, Khalifa maintained his innocence, contending that he was a legitimate businessman and philanthropist who had visited the Bay Area merely to meet with seed brokers as part of his import-export business. He categorically denied being a terrorist and claimed that his conviction in Amman was the result of perjured testimony by a witness who had been tortured.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A CURIOUS SERIES OF EVENTS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Khalifa was initially housed in the relatively low-security Santa Rita Jail in Alameda County. Then, over the next few months, a curious series of events began to unfold.<\/p>\n<p>Rather than cooperating with the Feds, Khalifa initially fought his extradition to Jordan. He also filed a civil suit to get back the contents of his luggage, which included the coveted PDA and other computer files.<\/p>\n<p>Astonishingly, the Feds complied.<\/p>\n<p>On March 23, in a response to Khalifa\u2019s motion for return of property and an order unsealing his search warrant, assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen R. Freccero stated that \u201cThe United States has no objection to the unsealing of the search warrant [and] the return of the property seized.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So the treasure trove of al Qaeda related intelligence went back to MJK.<\/p>\n<p><strong>KHALIFA&#8217;S STATUS CHANGES DRAMATICALLY<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Then, on April 19, the very same day as the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa\u2019s situation changed significantly. As terrorism analyst John Berger, who maintains the website\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.intelwire.com\/\"><strong>intelwire.com<\/strong><\/a>, first\u00a0discovered, Khalifa was abruptly shifted from the low-security Santa Rita jail to the maximum security Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California.<\/p>\n<p>Then, a week after insisting that he remain in the United States, Khalifa did an abrupt 180-degree turn and now asked to be deported to Jordan after all. According to a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/news\/article\/Terror-suspect-OKs-deportation-3147130.php\"><strong>San Francisco Examiner story,<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0Khalifa wept before a federal judge as he denied his guilt, exclaiming, \u201cI really don\u2019t see any sign that I can protect myself here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Quoting Khalifa\u2019s attorney, Marc van Der Hout, Eric Brazil wrote in the Examiner piece that \u201cthe current \u2018anti-alien climate\u2019 and extreme sensitivity to terrorist allegations in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing made the United States a less promising field than Jordan on which to fight his legal battles.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In return for Khalifa\u2019s acceptance of the deportation order, the Feds now dropped the initial terrorism allegations and asserted a broader charge that his presence in the United States constituted a foreign policy hazard.<\/p>\n<p>Curiously, his case merited such special treatment that he went before the federal magistrate in San Francisco\u2019s federal district courthouse rather than the immigration courtroom on Kearny Street, which was typical in such matters.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt that this case was being given high-level treatment by the Justice Department and State,\u201d says terrorism researcher Paul Thompson.<\/p>\n<p><strong>WHEN DID KHALIFA LEAVE?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On May 5, 1995, the story took an even more mysterious\u00a0turn.<\/p>\n<p>In\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.upi.com\/Archives\/1995\/05\/05\/Alleged-terrorist-deported-to-Jordan\/5516799646400\/\"><strong>a UPI story<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a>entitled \u201cAlleged Terrorist Deported to Jordan,\u201d Thomas J. Schiltgen, the INS director for Northern California, was quoted as saying that Khalifa had been returned to Jordan two days before, on May 3.<\/p>\n<p>The Associated Press ran a similar story, datelined Amman, quoting Khalifa\u2019s lawyer, who declared that Khalifa \u201chas been deported from the United States for retrial here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Yet according to Bureau of Prison records, on that date Khalifa was merely \u201cadmitted to an in-transit facility\u201d of the BOP. John Berger of \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/intelwire.egoplex.com\/\"><strong>Intelwire<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a>who obtained the BOP records, wrote this analysis on March 20, 2006:\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/investigatingtrump.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Screen-Shot-2017-01-09-at-4.13.58-PM.png\" alt=\"screen-shot-2017-01-09-at-4-13-58-pm\" width=\"140\" height=\"130\" \/><\/p>\n<p>At approximately 8:37 A.M., MJK was transferred out of Dublin FCI and out of BOP custody. He was designated 4-I on the data record. According to BOP, this designation indicates that he was removed from the custody of the BOP and placed in the custody of<em>\u00a0another government agency<\/em>. BOP officials would not disclose the agency to which he was remanded. [emphasis added]<\/p>\n<p>The question is whether that \u201cgovernment agency\u201d kept Khalifa in custody here in the United States or in a remote facility overseas\u2014because, according to his BOP inmate data sheet, \u201cKhalifa remained in 4-I status for almost another four months until August 31, 1995.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>WHY IS THE DATE OF MJK&#8217;S DEPORTATION IMPORTANT?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Because in July 1995 a witness in his Jordanian murder case reportedly recanted, and\u00a0<em>Khalifa\u2019s death sentence was rescinded<\/em>. If he returned to the Jordanian capital\u00a0<em>after<\/em>\u00a0that date, he would be a free man. Thus, if MJK was still in U.S. custody as late as August, the initial reason for his extradition would have\u00a0been eliminated.<\/p>\n<p>If Khalifa was no longer a wanted fugitive in need of extradition, then keeping him in this country would result in no \u201cserious adverse foreign policy consequences,\u201d as Warren Christopher had alleged earlier. And the FBI would have had a potential seminal witness against bin Laden.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GREETED BY THE SAUDIS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Whether it was in May or August 1995, eventually Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, the brother-in-law of the man who would declare war on America, was extradited to Jordan and set free.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe day he flew back to Saudi Arabia, he was greeted by a limo and a high-ranking official of the government embraced him,\u201d said Mike Scheuer, former head of Alec Station, the bin Laden unit at CIA.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/news\/article\/U-S-advising-Philippines-on-its-terrorism-war-2866023.php\"><strong>The San Francisco Chronicle<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a>quoted Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief, as alleging that right after his return Khalifa went on to help establish the Islamic Army of Aden in Yemen, the al Qaeda related group that later claimed credit for the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in October 2000.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe should never have been allowed to leave U.S. custody,\u201d Cannistraro said.<\/p>\n<p>In April 2004, in a declaration pursuant to a lawsuit filed on behalf of thousands of 9\/11 victims by the South Carolina law firm of Motley-Rice, Khalifa swore under oath that he had \u201cnever supported the loss of innocent life\u201d and believed that there is \u201cno justification for the tragic attacks of September 11, 2001. I have never supported any person or organization that I have known to participate in terrorist\u00a0activities,\u201d he declared.<\/p>\n<p>Later, Khalifa was said to be \u201crunning a seafood restaurant in Jedda,\u201d Saudi Arabia, according to Terry McDermott, who interviewed MJK for his acclaimed book on the 9\/11 hijackers,<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Perfect-Soldiers-Hijackers-They-Were\/dp\/B00375LNG0\">\u00a0Perfect Soldiers<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>According to a piece by Nick Fielding in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2007\/mar\/02\/alqaida.saudiarabia\"><strong>The Guardian<\/strong><\/a>, Khalifa was murdered in Madagascar in January, 2007. He was 49 years old.<\/p>\n<p>As Fielding reported, he&#8217;d &#8220;been shot twice, stabbed and hacked at with an axe. His laptop, notebooks and money were missing, as were his two mobile phones. A survivor from the attack said a gang of up to 30 men had burst in to the guesthouse at the (gem) mine in Soameloka before setting upon their victim.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Whether his death was a gem-related theft attempt or a link to MJK&#8217;s terrorist past remains a mystery.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AN EPIC MISSED OPPORTUNITY<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe road to 9\/11 is paved with thousands of missed opportunities,\u201d says terror expert Steven Emerson. \u201cAlong with each missed opportunity, we can go back and kick ourselves in the shin and one of those [instances] would\u2019ve been holding onto Mohammed Jamal Khalifa and following up on what he was doing for the Osama bin Laden organization.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>COVERING FOR AN ACT OF NEGLIGENCE?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Khalifa case is worth studying in detail, though, not just because of the massive security loss that it represented for America, but because it may have led to that infamous March 1995 memo from Deputy A.G. Gorelick which sought to define how the FBI and Justice Department would investigate terrorism for years to come.<\/p>\n<p>In that memo, promulgated two months after her letter acquiescing to Khalifa\u2019s deportation, Gorelick issued the Justice Department policy creating the \u201cwall.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She instructed FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors to separate\u00a0<em>past<\/em>\u00a0criminal investigations, \u201cincluding the bombing of the World Trade Center\u201d and \u201cthe indicted case of United States v. Rahman, et al.\u201d from Foreign Counter Intelligence (FCI) investigations of\u00a0<em>future<\/em>\u00a0terrorist acts.<\/p>\n<p><strong>In effect, Gorelick was ordering the breakup of the Justice Department\u2019s war on terror into two separate camps.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause the counterintelligence investigation will involve the use of surveillance techniques authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) against targets that, in some instances, had been subject to surveillance under Title III, and because it will involve some of the same sources and targets as the criminal investigation, we believe that it is prudent to establish a set of instructions that will clearly separate the counter-intelligence investigation from the more limited, but continued, criminal investigations,\u201d Gorelick wrote.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/investigatingtrump.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Screen-Shot-2017-01-09-at-6.55.42-PM.png\" alt=\"screen-shot-2017-01-09-at-6-55-42-pm\" width=\"230\" height=\"160\" \/>Since most of the Justice Department\u2019s body of knowledge on al Qaeda, Yousef, and the blind Sheikh\u2019s plots was contained in the files of FBI agents and SDNY prosecutors who worked those criminal cases, Gorelick\u2019s extraordinary edict had the potential legal effect of\u00a0<strong>isolating them<\/strong>\u00a0from the FCI agents trying to stop the next al Qaeda bomb from detonating.<\/p>\n<p>Gorelick\u2019s memo also had a more personal effect: It may well have helped to obscure her support for Khalifa\u2019s extradition at a time when prosecutors in the SDNY had recently commenced the epic case they were mounting against the blind Sheikh and his cohorts.<\/p>\n<p><strong>BEYOND WHAT WAS LEGALLY REQUIRED<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>What makes Gorelick\u2019s memo even more astonishing is that it wasn\u2019t legally necessary. She even admitted in her order that these new \u201cprocedures\u2026 go beyond what is legally required\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As mentioned earlier, the 2004 disclosure of that memo by Attorney General John Ashcroft, in his testimony before the 9\/11 Commission, set off a firestorm of criticism since Gorelick was serving as one of the ten Commissioners.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/investigatingtrump.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Screen-Shot-2017-01-09-at-4.07.58-PM.png\" alt=\"screen-shot-2017-01-09-at-4-07-58-pm\" width=\"375\" height=\"252\" \/>After Ashcroft\u2019s revelation, F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-WI), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, accused Gorelick of having \u201can inherent conflict of interest\u201d and called for her immediate resignation.<\/p>\n<p>But the \u201cwall memo\u201d debate quickly degenerated into partisan finger-pointing after Ashcroft was forced to admit that his own deputy attorney general Larry Thompson had renewed the terms of the Gorelick memo in August 2001, weeks before 9\/11.<\/p>\n<p>As retired FBI special agent Joe O\u2019Brien sees it, \u201cThe wall memo was a disastrous move. Because, as it turned out, all of these cases were related. This was a bin Laden\u2013New York show from start to finish.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In years to come \u00a0Gorelick would support a decision that limited the scope of the commission\u2019s investigation \u201cwith regard to the Department of Justice\u201d to the \u201cperiod 1998 forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>That narrower field of inquiry had the effect of ensuring that the Commission wouldn\u2019t look back at the\u00a0disastrous Khalifa deportation, which Gorelick supported, or question whether she had used the \u201cwall memo\u201d to keep prosecutors from connecting the dots on her negligence.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt that the commission should have gone back at least as far as the first Bush administration in order to effectively measure the intelligence failures that led to the attacks,\u201d says Monica Gabrielle, a member of the core group of 9\/11 victim families that campaigned for the creation of the commission. \u201cBut Gorelick was one of those who wanted to concentrate only on the last few years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Apparently she got her way. In the entire 604-page authorized edition of The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/9-11commission.gov\/report\/\"><strong>9\/11 Commission Report,<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0there isn\u2019t a word about Gorelick\u2019s role in supporting the exit of Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, or about the \u201cwall memo\u201d \u2014two of the most damaging moves the U.S. justice system took on the road to 9\/11.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Jared%20Kushner%27s%20lawyer%20is%20ex-Deputy%20AG%20Jamie%20Gorelick%2C%20author%20of%20the%20infamous%20%22wall%20memo%2C%22%20who%20facilitated%20the%20deportation%20of%20bin%20Laden%27s%20in-law%20from%20U.S.%20custody\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p>By Peter Lance January 9th, 2017.\u00a0\u00a0The Huffington Post\u00a0When\u00a0NBC News reported\u00a0today that Jared Kushner, Donald Trump&#8217;s son-in-law, would soon be a &#8220;top advisor&#8221; to the President-elect, his principal spokesperson asserting that Mr. Kushner &#8220;is committed to complying with federal ethics laws&#8221; was none other than ex-9\/11 Commissioner and Clinton administration Deputy A.G.\u00a0Jamie Gorelick,\u00a0author of the controversial [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10093,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[1178,122,1179,1180,1181,1182,1177,452,1220,1183],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10092"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10092"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10545,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10092\/revisions\/10545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlance.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}