911 Hearings: Hill was blocked from the Truth

Bush May Invoke 9/11 Executive Privilege and Secrecy

http://www.tomflocco.com/bush_may_invoke_9.htm

“THE ATTACK WILL BE SPECTACULAR AND DESIGNED TO INFLICT MASS CASUALTIES AGAINST U.S. FACILITIES OR INTERESTS. ATTACK PREPARATIONS HAVE BEEN MADE. ATTACK WILL OCCUR WITH LITTLE OR NO WARNING.” (CIA Intelligence Report for President Bush, July, 2001 -- 30 Days Prior to 9/11)

Proof of prior knowledge of the September 11 attacks is continuing to trickle out of the purportedly “leak-proof” White House, as more corroborative chickens of 9/11 are coming home to roost -- even as President Bush is considering invoking executive privilege to keep the clamps on evidence that could alter the political landscape for the nation’s conquering “top-gun.”

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However, for those still concerned about the mysteries of September 11, such issues as: 1) poorly documented visas -- issued fraudulently by immigration officials failing to follow the law, 2) restrained U.S. military air defense protocols, 3) millions of dollars in suspicious pre-attack stock market insider trading profits as yet unclaimed and unrevealed within a still-unpublicized Securities Exchange Commission 9/11 “Control List,” 4) redacted presidential intelligence documents, plus other unanswered questions directly related to prior knowledge of the attacks all seem fair game -- given the explosive evidence.

Newly-revealed statements from a CIA July, 2001 presidential intelligence briefing -- when placed within the context of planes crashing into buildings, one-by-one on September 11 -- should bring to mind Bush’s reactions that morning at the Sarasota, Florida elementary school. But the public has never heard the reason for the President’s lack of swift and decisive action at the school.

The intelligence committee staff director, Eleanor Hill -- a former federal prosecutor and Pentagon Inspector General -- was blocked at the last minute from divulging precisely who in the White House received the July briefing, classified by CIA Director George Tenet. According to Newsweek, a source said one of the recipients of the still-unpublicized July briefing which foretold the 9/11 attacks was Bush himself.

But Hill was only permitted to say “senior government officials.” And no one has testified regarding who exerted the pressure on the staff director. The President has not testified. And the congressional hearings are over.

The weekly periodical also revealed that the congressional report “names names, gives dates, and provides a body of new information about the handling of many other crucial intelligence briefings -- including one in early August 2001 given to national-security advisor Condoleezza Rice that discussed Al Qaeda operations within the United States and the possibility that the group’s members might seek to hijack airplanes.”

National Security Adviser Dr. Condoleezza Rice briefing reporters at the May 16, 2002 “damage-control” news conference in response to the “Bush Knew” headline in the New York Post. Afterward, the White House and CNN transcripts erased the name of the Pakistani Intelligence General Mahmud Ahmad who had met with State Department officials just days prior to the attacks, but shortly after sending a $100,000. check to lead hijacker Mohammed Atta. (Photo: 2002, Reuters Limited)

The astonishing validation of presidential prior knowledge that a major attack would occur against the American people on U.S. soil is only superceded by still-hidden evidence regarding the specificity of the details, how the information was obtained, and the complete list of pre-9/11 meetings and briefings recipients, even as supposedly redacted papers were sent to the people’s elected representatives -- thus far mum about the subject.

That is, everyone except Senator Bob Graham of Florida. Our phone interview yesterday with Paul Anderson, Graham’s communications director, confirmed the overnight Newsweek Online story revealing Graham’s ire over the fact that George W.’s lawyers are currently determining whether the president will invoke executive privilege to prevent critical 9/11 evidence from reaching the public via the 9/11 Commission.

Anderson told us “I am unable to tell you whether Senator Graham (former co-chairman of the Joint Senate-House 9/11 Intelligence Committee) has even seen the complete and un-redacted versions of the two (pre-9/11) presidential briefing documents to which you refer,” adding that “the senator has been fighting for [evidence] declassification since the end of February -- after we had waited since filing our original ‘classified first pass’ on the (800+ page) report last December 20.”

Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) It will be interesting to see whether Presidential candidate Graham considers all the 9/11 evidence and testimony important enough to fight for the public’s right to know -- in the face of a possible presidential invocation of Executive Privilege regarding document suppression.

Anderson also said that “since late February, we have been on the second pass, and Senator Graham has been urging (FBI) Director (Robert) Mueller and (CIA) Director (George) Tenet to help expedite the release of all or as much information as possible regarding meetings, briefing papers, and other documents.”

According to the Newsweek report (5/1/2003), Graham had claimed that “There has been a cover up of this.” His co-chairman, Rep. Porter Goss (R-FL) added “I find this process horrendously frustrating,” offering further that “senior intelligence officials said things in public hearings that they [administration officials] don’t want us to put in the report.”

“That’s not something I can rationally accept without further public explanation,” Goss said. Our three phone calls yesterday, attempting to seek comment from Goss’s press aide, Julie Almacy, were unreturned.

When we asked Anderson what Graham would do if he disagreed with Bush‘s lawyers regarding what evidence Americans have a right to know about, the senate aide told us “I can’t tell you at this time whether the Senator will make a major issue out of either invocation of presidential executive privilege or withholding what he considers key evidence.”

However, in a portent for down-the-road 9/11 machinations, Anderson added “the President’s attorneys have told the Intelligence Committee that their consideration of the ‘second pass’ will be delayed until the end of May [5 months since the original submission] -- and Senator Graham has complained repeatedly and publicly about this.”

That more media and public inquiries regarding what is being hidden and why it is being hidden is assured once the more public 9/11 Commission hearings commence this summer.

September 11 Showdown

May 7

http://www.msnbc.com/news/910676.asp?cp1=1

"...NEWSWEEK has learned, President Bush’s chief lawyer has privately signaled that the White House may seek to invoke executive privilege over key documents relating to the attacks in order to keep them out of the hands of investigators for the National Commission on Terror Attacks Upon the United States—the independent panel created by Congress to probe all aspects of 9-11.

Some commission members now fear a showdown over the issue—particularly over extremely sensitive National Security Council minutes and presidential briefing papers—could be coming in the next few weeks. “We do think it’s important to engage this issue relatively early—i.e., now,” says Philip Zelikow, the executive director for the commission, who is negotiating with administration lawyers to inspect documents and interview senior officials...

Just two weeks ago, one commission member, Tim Roemer, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana, had sought to read transcripts of three days of closed hearings that had been held last fall by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees—hearings that Roemer, as a member of the House panel, had actually participated in.

But when Roemer went down to a carefully guarded room on Capitol Hill to read the classified transcripts—he says to refresh his memory—he was stunned to learn that he couldn’t have access to them. The reason, relayed by a congressional staffer, was that Zelikow had acceded to a request by an administration official to permit lawyers to first review them to determine if the transcripts contained testimony about “privileged” material.

Roemer called the deal “outrageous” and 9-11 family members victims bombarded the panel with angry calls. But late Tuesday, White House lawyers relented, thereby averting an embarrassing public escalation of the dispute—and inevitable charges of a White House cover-up—that could well have marred last Thursday’s highly publicized ceremony aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln in which Bush declared the military action in Iraq “one victory in a war on terror that began on September 11, 2001, and still goes on.”

...Thomas Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey who Bush named to chair the panel, confirmed to NEWSWEEK that in private talks with White House chief council Alberto Gonzales, the president’s chief lawyer, has already told him that he “may seek to invoke executive privilege” over some documents sought by the commission...

...Among the most sensitive documents the commission is known to be interested in reviewing are internal National Security Council minutes from the spring and summer of 2001 when the CIA and other intelligence agencies were warning that an attack by Al Qaeda could well be imminent. The panel is also expected to seek interviews with key principals—such as national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice and her chief deputy, Stephen J. Hadley—to question them both about advice they gave the president and about what actions they took to deal with the rising concerns of intelligence-community officials about the Qaeda threat..."

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