Gorelick Should Resign

The Washington Post carries an editorial this morning arguing that calls for Jamie Gorelick to resign from the September 11 Commission because of her role in creating a wall between intelligence gathering functions are overblown. The Post reasons that Gorelick is one of many commissioners with a conflict of interest, and explains that she has recused herself from discussion of "the wall". The Post then takes a few clumsy swings at Attorney General John Ashcroft (one of its favorite targets) who in testimony before the Commission asserted that the wall was the "single greatest structural cause for the September 11th problem." The Post concludes that the wall was merely a contributor to the problem and that Gorelick's involvement in its creation was minimal.

The purpose of the Commission is to investigate all contributory factors leading to September 11, and that would include the wall. Ashcroft made available to the public a memorandum from Gorelick showing that she was quite involved in the wall's creation. With this in mind, Gorelick should be in front of the Commission, not hiding behind it. As if to add insult to injury, Gorelick, despite recusing herself from Commission discussions of the wall, wrote an editorial carried in Sunday's Washington Post laying the foundation for much of the Post editorial's reasoning.

Writing in National Review yesterday, Andrew McCarthy drilled into the Gorelick's and the Post's assertions that the impact of the wall was minor and that her role in its creation was minimal. McCarthy gets it right- the wall was a serious problem and Gorelick was central to the policy making that created it. What is more, her editorial, published in the nation's political paper of record, mocks the Commission and the very concept of recusal.

For the sake of truth and propriety, Gorelick should resign from, and testify before, the Commission.