If I sounded skeptical about the idea that Dianne Feinstein would lose her re-election bid in California, well, that’s nothing compared to the skepticism I have over the idea that the White House would name Jamie Gorelick to run the FBI. Since yesterday, after Fox Nation spotted the insider-view short list reported by the Wall Street Journal a week ago, plenty of my friends in the dextrosphere have exploded in justifiable indignation over the prospect, including Red State, Jeff Dunetz, Kevin Binversie, Weasel Zippers, and more. Let’s look at the original WSJ report:
The Obama administration is ramping up its search for a new Federal Bureau of Investigation director, as Robert Mueller’s term approaches its end in early September, with former Bush and Clinton administration officials and a federal judge among those being considered.
The next FBI director will have to navigate partisan fights over how to fight terrorism. Republicans have criticized the president for some of his national-security policies, particularly those dealing with Guantanamo Bay detainees and interrogation of terror suspects. …
The candidates being discussed, according to U.S. officials, are James Comey, Kenneth Wainstein, Patrick Fitzgerald and Merrick Garland. Also in the running, the officials said, are Michael Mason, John Pistole and Jamie Gorelick.
Really? Let’s take a look at Jamie Gorelick’s career highlights over just the last few years. After exposure as one of the recipients of Countrywide Mortgage’s Friends of Angelo program while serving on the board of Fannie Mae, it also came to light that Gorelick received a $779,000 bonus as the result of 1998 earnings that were boosted by falsified data from top management. Gorelick has thus far avoided prosecution in either of those cases, which has left her plenty of time to represent BP after the oil spill, and to lobby against Barack Obama’s effort to nationalize the student-loan industry.
We haven’t even begun to address Gorelick’s role in blocking the FBI from getting coordination from intelligence agencies on national-security issues, thanks to the policies she implemented while in the Clinton administration. Nor have we mentioned that outside of a stint as Deputy Attorney General when Gorelick imposed “the wall,” she has no law-enforcement experience at all, not even as a US Attorney, as Patrick Fitzgerald has. Of course, Leon Panetta didn’t have any intelligence experience when Obama appointed him to run the CIA either, but Panetta didn’t carry the baggage Gorelick does.
Barack Obama has certainly shown plenty of executive incompetence in his two-plus years as President and nominated some unqualified and extreme people to important positions — but no one is this stupid. The confirmation hearings would be a disaster for Obama, as Republicans (and perhaps even a few Democrats) take chunks out of Gorelick’s hide over “the wall,” BP, Fannie Mae, and the Friends of Angelo program. In fact, Gorelick herself wouldn’t be stupid enough to testify under oath to Congress on these issues with those questions hanging over her head.
This isn’t even a trial balloon. It’s a brick that nonetheless serves one purpose — to make all of the other candidates look good by comparison.
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