OMG Jamie Gorelick Attorney general? Fannie Mae and the Sept. 11 commission [View All]

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/08/us/politics/08gorelick.html


Used to work as: Vice chairwoman at Fannie Mae, the giant mortgage lender, where she was paid a reported $25.6 million in salary and other compensation from 1998 to 2003. She went on to join the Washington law firm Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale & Dorr as a partner, where she has represented a range of clients, including Duke University in defending claims brought against it by some of its lacrosse players in a highly publicized rape investigation. She was a Democratic appointee on the 10-member commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks.

Carries as baggage: Her work at Fannie Mae, which had to be bailed out by the government in September as part of a $200 billion deal. Ms. Gorelick left the company just as it was coming under attack for huge accounting failures. She has also drawn criticism for her role at the Justice Department, in which she allegedly created an intelligence “wall” that hindered counterterrorism agents in the years before the Sept. 11 attacks. Conservatives called for her removal from the Sept. 11 commission, but her fellow members rallied around her and said critics were distorting her record. The criticism grew so heated that the F.B.I. investigated a death threat against her family, and President Bush had to intervene personally to stop the Justice Department from releasing sealed reports involving her. Some conservative bloggers have already begun trying to derail Ms. Gorelick’s possible nomination as attorney general, pointing to her experiences at both Fannie Mae and the Sept. 11 commission.