Joan Swirsky
Monday, Apr. 19, 2004

Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, “The Apprentice” wannabe and former political appointee in the Clinton White House, and Jamie Gorelick, a panelist on the 9/11 Commission and former deputy attorney general and general counsel of the Department of Defense for the Clinton administration, also shared the lessons they learned from their former boss: manipulation, deception, lying – and then lying about their lies!

The deficiencies and excesses of Manigault-Stallworth were relatively benign and more self-destructive than harmful to our nation, although her preposterous self-importance and shameless dishonesty were no doubt a huge embarrassment to thousands if not millions of honest young black women who could and would have benefited from a worthier role model.

Lasting for only nine of the 13 episodes of the hit TV show before being fired, Manigault-Stallworth managed to establish rock-bottom standards of social, professional and ethical behavior, alienating not only the 15 other aspirants but also her flamboyant host, Donald Trump, as well as his most trusted advisers.

In addition to patronizing her fellow contestants, she claimed a migraine to avoid participating in a team challenge (which didn’t prevent her from playing basketball), played Sarah Heartburn after a small piece of plaster fell on her head, huffily hung up on a teammate, lost her team’s money, acted the diva in insisting on a leisurely lunch when time was most urgent, engaged in nonstop braggadocio, repeatedly violated an agreement she made not to lowball the price of a product, savaged another teammate with gratuitous insults and accused yet another of racism and using the “N” word (an accusation that was completely disproved when the producers played back the tape of the so-called incident).

Recalled to participate in the last episode, as were the other fired contestants, Manigault-Stallworth lied to and deceived her team leader (who was one of the two finalists) and refused to respond to his pages, effectively sabotaging his chance to be chosen for the plum $250,000 job.

After witnessing her behavior first-hand, Mr. Trump could not restrain himself from asking the loser, “Why didn’t you fire her?”

It’s one thing to be played for an April fool, quite another to prove – as Manigault-Stallworth did – that there is such a thing!

But all of her egregious behavior pales in comparison with that of the other April fool, Jamie Gorelick, whose sins of both commission and omission have far more serious consequences than simply looking bad.

An accomplished attorney with Harvard undergraduate and law degrees and a long and impressive resume, Gorelick has sat on the supposedly nonpartisan panel since its inception, none-too-successfully concealing her political biases, which invariably are skewed to favor testifiers of the Democratic persuasion and particularly those from the Clinton administration who supported, encouraged, applauded and were complicit in her behavior before, during and after the Waco years.

And what was that behavior? In 1995, she issued a memo of rules (that subsequently became policy) that separated criminal investigations from intelligence-gathering, in essence creating a “wall” between the law enforcement officials at the FBI and the intelligence officials at the CIA that prohibited them from sharing information about terrorist suspects in the United States. Her memo also stated – brazenly – that these rules went “beyond what is legally required.”

That is why the FBI could not tell the CIA (and other intelligence agencies) the identity of two known al-Qaida terrorists after they were already in the U.S. and planning the disaster of 9/11! Nor could they get a warrant to search the computer of the “20th highjacker,” Zacarias Moussaoui, who was captured before he had the thrill of spending eternity with 72 virgins!

And how do we know this shocking and depressing information? Through Ms. Gorelick? Through the lengthy testimony (read “spin”) of President Clinton; his vice president, Al Gore; his attorney general, Janet Reno; his secretary of state, Madeleine Albright; or his secretary of defense, William Cohen?

None of the above!

Instead, this thunderbolt of newly declassified information was delivered to the Commission by Attorney General John Ashcroft, who confirmed for a large portion of the American public what it has always suspected: that the Clinton administration, in ignoring or acting feebly against numerous terrorist attacks against our nation, both on our own soil and abroad, paved the way – in fact, rolled out the red carpet – for an emboldened al-Qaida to murder 3,000 of our and other nations’ citizens.

That famous question “What did you know and when did you know it?” can now be answered. Ms. Gorelick and virtually all high-level people in the Clinton White House knew of the disastrous effect the “wall” policy was having on the effort to find and bring terrorists to justice. When did they know it? Every minute, every hour, every week, every month, every year they held office!

And during every second of the 9/11 Commission hearings, when none of them thought our country’s security might be enhanced by admitting to their misguided – indeed, terrorist-friendly – policy!

That is why they are all quaking at the prospect that the still-classified report on the Millennium Bomb Plot will be declassified, further implicating Ms. Gorelick and her memo in a near intelligence disaster, as well as highlighting the culpability of the eight-year Clinton regime in enhancing the odds that Sept. 11 would happen.

The melodrama queen from “The Apprentice” was appropriately fired before she could wreak more harm. But when outraged critics pointed out that Ms. Gorelick had clear conflicts of interest, demanded her resignation from the Commission and suggested that she should be testifying instead of judging the testimony of others, Chairman Thomas Kean responded with a curt: “People ought to stay out of our business.”

“Our business?” I thought the 9/11 Commission was my business and the business of every citizen in our country. So much for Kean’s and the rest of the commissioners’ “search for truth.”

At this point, it is crystal clear that all of them have violated their mandate to “prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks … [and] to provide recommendations designed to guard against future attacks.”

Now comes the damage control and cover-up.

But that doesn’t solve the Gorelick problem. She wasn’t played for an April fool. She just played the rest of the country!

Joan Swirsky is a New York-based journalist and author who can be reached at joansharon@aol.com