Jamie Gorelick
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Jamie S. Gorelick (; born May 6, 1950) is an American lawyer who served as the
Deputy Attorney General of the United States The United States deputy attorney general is the second-highest-ranking official in the United States Department of Justice and oversees the day-to-day operation of the Department. The deputy attorney general acts as attorney general during the ...
from 1994 to 1997, during the
Clinton administration Bill Clinton's tenure as the 42nd president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1993, and ended on January 20, 2001. Clinton, a Democrat from Arkansas, took office following a decisive election victory over Re ...
. She has been a partner at
WilmerHale Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, also known as Hale & Dorr and WilmerHale, is an international law firm with offices in the United States, Europe and Asia. It is co-headquartered in Washington, D.C. and Boston. It was formed in 2004 thr ...
since 2003 and has served on the board of directors of
Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...
since February 2012. Gorelick served on British Petroleum's Advisory Council, as their top legal counsel after the 2010
Deepwater Horizon oil spill The ''Deepwater Horizon'' oil spill (also referred to as the "BP oil spill") was an industrial disaster that began on 20 April 2010 off of the coast of the United States in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect, considered ...
. She was appointed by former Senate Democratic Leader
Tom Daschle Thomas Andrew Daschle ( ; born December 9, 1947) is an American politician and lobbyist who served as a United States senator from South Dakota from 1987 to 2005. A member of the Democratic Party, he became U.S. Senate Minority Leader in 1995 an ...
to serve as a commissioner on the bipartisan
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was set up on November 27, 2002, "to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11 attacks", includin ...
, which sought to investigate the circumstances leading up to the
terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...
and also served as Vice Chairman of
Fannie Mae The Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA), commonly known as Fannie Mae, is a United States government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) and, since 1968, a publicly traded company. Founded in 1938 during the Great Depression as part of the N ...
.


Early life

Gorelick was born in
Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
,
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
to Leonard and
Shirley Gorelick Shirley Gorelick (24 January 1924 – 19 October 2000) was an American figurative painter, printmaker, and sculptor. She "rejected both the extremes of nonobjectivity and photographic exactitude," choosing instead to use a range of sources that ...
, and grew up in
Great Neck, New York Great Neck is a region on Long Island, New York, that covers a peninsula on the North Shore (Long Island), North Shore and includes nine villages, among them Great Neck (village), New York, Great Neck, Great Neck Estates, New York, Great Neck Es ...
, in a Jewish family. She attended South High School, graduating in 1968. She went on to receive a J.D. ''
cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...
'' from
Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...
in 1975. Gorelick was president of the District of Columbia Bar from 1992 to 1993. She is a law partner in the Washington office of
WilmerHale Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, also known as Hale & Dorr and WilmerHale, is an international law firm with offices in the United States, Europe and Asia. It is co-headquartered in Washington, D.C. and Boston. It was formed in 2004 thr ...
and a member of the boards of
Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...
,
United Technologies Corporation United Technologies Corporation (UTC) was an American multinational conglomerate headquartered in Farmington, Connecticut. It researched, developed, and manufactured products in numerous areas, including aircraft engines, aerospace systems ...
, the
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private foundation that makes grants and impact investments to support non-profit organizations in approximately 50 countries around the world. It has an endowment of $7.0 billion and p ...
, the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) is a nonpartisan international affairs think tank headquartered in Washington D.C. with operations in Europe, South and East Asia, and the Middle East as well as the United States. Founded in ...
, the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless and Legal Affairs.


Deputy Attorney General

While serving as Deputy Attorney General under Bill Clinton, Gorelick spoke in favor of banning the use of strong encryption and called for a
key escrow Key escrow (also known as a "fair" cryptosystem) is an arrangement in which the keys needed to decrypt encrypted data are held in escrow so that, under certain circumstances, an authorized third party may gain access to those keys. These third pa ...
system to allow the Federal government access to encrypted communication.


Private practice

Gorelick is a lobbyist for the lending industry fighting student loan reform. Gorelick has represented Cardinal Health.


Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae)

Even though she had no previous training nor experience in finance, Gorelick was appointed Vice Chairman of
Federal National Mortgage Association The Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA), commonly known as Fannie Mae, is a United States government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) and, since 1968, a publicly traded company. Founded in 1938 during the Great Depression as part of the N ...
(Fannie Mae) from 1997 to 2003. She served alongside former Clinton Administration official
Franklin Raines Franklin Delano Raines (born January 14, 1949) also known as Frank Raines is an American business executive. He is the former chairman and chief executive officer of the Federal National Mortgage Association, commonly known as Fannie Mae, who ser ...
. During that period, Fannie Mae developed a $10 billion accounting scandal. On March 25, 2002, ''
Business Week ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...
'' interviewed Gorelick about the health of Fannie Mae. Gorelick is quoted as saying, "We believe we are managed safely. We are very pleased that Moody's gave us an A-minus in the area of bank financial strength – without a reference to the government in any way. Fannie Mae is among the handful of top-quality institutions." One year later, government regulators accused Fannie Mae of improper accounting "to the tune of $9 billion" in unrecorded losses. In an additional scandal concerning falsified financial transactions that helped the company meet earnings targets for 1998, a "manipulation" that triggered multimillion-dollar bonuses for top executives, Gorelick received $779,625. A 2006 report of an investigation by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight into Fannie Mae's accounting practices and corporate governance revealed that from 1998 to 2002 Gorelick received a total of $26.5 million in income from Fannie Mae.


9/11 Commission

According to Gorelick's op-ed letter in the ''
Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' she states that: "At last week's hearing, Attorney General John Ashcroft, facing criticism, asserted that 'the single greatest structural cause for September 11 was the wall that segregated criminal investigators and intelligence agents' and that I built that wall through a March 1995 memo." However, the report from the 9/11 Commission, co-authored by Gorelick, asserts that the 'wall' limiting the ability of federal agencies to cooperate had existed since the 1980s and is in fact not one singular wall but a series of restrictions created over the course of over twenty years.


Conflict of interest

A 1995 Department of Justice memorandum states that the procedures her memorandum put in place for the investigation of the 1993 WTC bombing "go beyond what is legally required... oprevent any risk of creating an unwarranted appearance that FISA is being used to avoid procedural safeguards which would apply in a criminal investigation." The wall intentionally exceeded the requirements of FISA (the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 ("FISA" , ) is a United States federal law that establishes procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and the collection of "foreign intelligence information" between "foreign po ...
of 1978) for the purposes of criminal investigations, as well as the then-existing federal case law. These rules were, shortly after their creation, expanded to regulate such communications in future counter-terrorism investigations. Gorelick eventually recused herself from reviewing her own role in the regulation of information about terrorist activities. Attorney General Ashcroft was incensed before the 9/11 commission to learn that the commission had not investigated or been told of Gorelick's memo or her role regarding the "wall". This assertion was disputed by former senator
Slade Gorton Thomas Slade Gorton III (January 8, 1928 – August 19, 2020) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States Senator from Washington from 1981 to 1987 and again from 1989 until 2001. A member of the Republican Party, he hel ...
(R-WA), a member of the 9/11 Commission, who said, "nothing Jamie Gorelick wrote had the slightest impact on the Department of Defense or its willingness or ability to share intelligence information with other intelligence agencies." Gorton also asserted that "the wall" was a long-standing policy that had resulted from the
Church committee The Church Committee (formally the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities) was a US Senate select committee in 1975 that investigated abuses by the Central Intelligence ...
in the 1970s, and that the policy only prohibits transfer of certain information from prosecutors to the intelligence services and never prohibited information flowing in the opposite direction. Testifying before the commission, Attorney General
John Ashcroft John David Ashcroft (born May 9, 1942) is an American lawyer, lobbyist and former politician who served as the 79th U.S. Attorney General in the George W. Bush administration from 2001 to 2005. A former U.S. Senator from Missouri and the 50th ...
said, "Although you understand the debilitating impact of the wall, I cannot imagine that the commission knew about this memorandum, so I have declassified it for you and the public to review," he said. "Full disclosure compels me to inform you that its author is a member of this commission."


Lawyer for Duke University

Gorelick was added in February 2008 to
Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
's defense team after the
2006 Duke University lacrosse case The Duke lacrosse case was a widely reported 2006 criminal case in Durham, North Carolina, United States in which three members of the Duke University men's lacrosse team were falsely accused of rape. The three students were David Evans, Collin ...
scandal. The University faced claims by unaccused members of the team that they "railroaded 47 Duke University students as either principals or accomplices." Gorelick and her law firm left the defense team in July 2011 after Judge Beatty denied Duke's motions to dismiss and let the lawsuits proceed in April.


Lawyer for Jared Kushner

Gorelick represented
Jared Kushner Jared Corey Kushner (born January 10, 1981) is an American businessman and investor. He served as a senior advisor to 45th U.S. president Donald Trump, his father-in-law. Since leaving the White House, Kushner founded Affinity Partners, a pri ...
, the son-in-law of
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
, as he considered a possible role in the White House. She had advised Kushner, who has sprawling financial interests in a multibillion-dollar global real estate empire, on how he might comply with federal ethics and anti-nepotism laws. She has argued that although officials leading federal agencies are barred from hiring relatives, the White House is not an agency and thus exempt. Gorelick argued that if Kushner forgoes a White House salary, he would not be bound by federal nepotism rules. Though Kushner has no experience in government or public policy, Trump directed that during his presidential transition all foreign-policy matters be relayed through Kushner. Kushner participated in meetings between Trump and foreign heads of state while continuing to run the
Kushner Companies Kushner Companies LLC is an American real estate developer in the New York City metropolitan area. The company's biggest presence is in the New Jersey residential market. A study published in December 2017 by ''Bloomberg News'' indicated that ...
. On July 14, 2017, Gorelick stepped away from the lead role in the Russian investigation and turned over all responsibilities to
Abbe Lowell Abbe David Lowell (born April 28, 1952) is an American defense attorney who has represented several high-profile defendants. Lowell has represented numerous high-profile political figures, including Bob Menendez, John Edwards, Jared Kushner, Hunte ...
. Gorelick will still work on other matters for Kushner that she was originally retained for. In September 2017 she briefly fell for fake emails originating from "email prankster" James Linton purporting to be from Kushner but didn't reveal anything confidential.


Charitable work and community involvement

Gorelick has served on the boards of the
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private foundation that makes grants and impact investments to support non-profit organizations in approximately 50 countries around the world. It has an endowment of $7.0 billion and p ...
, the
Urban Institute The Urban Institute is a Washington, D.C.–based think tank that carries out economic and social policy research to "open minds, shape decisions, and offer solutions". The institute receives funding from government contracts, foundations and pr ...
, the
Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless The Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless (also known as WLCH or The Legal Clinic) is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization providing ''pro bono'' legal services to those in the District affected by lack of housing and other housing ...
and the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) is a nonpartisan international affairs think tank headquartered in Washington D.C. with operations in Europe, South and East Asia, and the Middle East as well as the United States. Founded in ...
. She was elected to The American Law Institute in 1987.


Personal

She is married to Richard Edward Waldhorn, a
pulmonologist Pulmonology (, , from Latin ''pulmō, -ōnis'' "lung" and the Greek suffix "study of"), pneumology (, built on Greek πνεύμων "lung") or pneumonology () is a medical specialty that deals with diseases involving the respiratory tract.
, and has two children.Washington Post profile
Retrieved March 24, 2017.


References


External links

*

from the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States

This link is no longer valid. I clicked the link, and it points instead to a page of several unrelated WSJ articles as of September 30, 2022. {{DEFAULTSORT:Gorelick, Jamie 1950 births Living people American people of Russian-Jewish descent Amazon (company) people Clinton administration personnel Harvard Law School alumni Lawyers from Brooklyn Lawyers who have represented the United States government Jewish American attorneys People from Great Neck, New York Radcliffe College alumni United States Deputy Attorneys General William A. Shine Great Neck South High School alumni Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr partners Urban Institute people