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9/11 Commission Memo: Witnesses were 'Intimidated' by 'Minders'
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by Erik Larson | April 27, 2009 at 01:50 pm
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9/11 Commission memo released to the National Archives in Washington, DC discusses witness 'intimidation' in interviews by agency 'minders'. Proposed solutions included limiting the number of minders to one per witness, having them sit behind (where they couldn't be seen by the witness- as opposed to with them at the table) and not permitting the minder to take 'verbatim' notes.
The presence of the minders was acknowledged, and their effect downplayed, by Kean and Hamilton in public statements in July and September 2003. These statements were apparently false, given the content of this memo. However, the memo is not evidence they were aware of this; they may have been clueless, or at least have 'plausible deniability' that they were out of the loop. As Kevin Fenton says in his blog post about the memo:
"Author Philip Shenon, who wrote a history of the commission, found that at the start of the commission’s work Zelikow drafted a welcome memo containing ground rules for staffers, such as not talking to journalists. One of the rules was that the staff should not talk freely to the commissioners. If a staffer were contacted by a commissioner, he should not deal with the commissioner himself, but contact Zelikow or his deputy, who would then “be sure that the appropriate members of the commission’s staff are responsive.”
This rule was rescinded after complaints from some of the commissioners, including former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick. Nevertheless, Zelikow’s control of information continued. When the commission’s counterterrorism team found a draft of the final report to be overly deferential to the FBI, they did not launch a formal objection to the draft’s language though the commission’s bureaucracy, but a female staffer cornered Gorelick “where Zelikow would not see it”–in the ladies room."
It was already clear that the 9/11 Commission was riddled with conflicts of interest:
Is Fix in at 9/11 Commission? by Paul Sperry
Who's Who on the 9/11 "Independent" Commission By Michel Chossudovsky
Mar 20, 2004 - Family Steering Committe calls for Zelikow's resignation
Apr 18, 2004 - Statement of the Family Steering Committee Regarding Conflicts of Interest and the 9/11 Commission
And had ignored 70% of the Family Steering Committee's questions
This memo is further evidence in a mounting pile that the Commission's investigation was a whitewash. See The Complete 9/11 Timeline for thousands of facts and details omitted from, or distorted in the 9/11 Commission Report.
A recently released 9/11 Commission memo highlights the role of government “minders” who accompanied witnesses interviewed by the commission. It was added to the National Archives’ files at the start of the year and discovered there by History Commons contributor paxvector.
The memo, entitled “Executive Branch Minders’ Intimidation of Witnesses,” complains that:
- Minders “answer[ed] questions directed at witnesses;”
- Minders acted as “monitors, reporting to their respective agencies on Commission staffs lines of inquiry and witnesses’ verbatim responses.” The staff thought this “conveys to witnesses that their superiors will review their statements and may engage in retribution;” and
- Minders “positioned themselves physically and have conducted themselves in a manner that we believe intimidates witnesses from giving full and candid responses to our questions.”
The memo was drafted by three staffers on the commission’s Team 2, which reviewed the overall structure of the US intelligence community. One of the drafters was Kevin Scheid, a senior staffer who led the team. His co-writers were Lorry Fenner, an air force intelligence officer, and lawyer Gordon Lederman. The complaint was sent to the commission’s counsels, Daniel Marcus and Steve Dunne, in October 2003, about halfway through the commission’s 19-month life.
The memo makes clear that the problems were not occurring only with witnesses talking to Team 2, but also in “other teams’ interviews.” A hand-written note on a draft of the memo says, “not one agency or minder – also where we’ve sat in on other Teams’ interviews.”
According to the memo, some minders merely policed prior agreements between the commission and their parent agency about what the commission could ask witnesses, and others were simply there to make a list of documents the commission might want based on a witness’ testimony. However, some minders saw their role differently.
Disclosure: I'm paxvector at HistoryCommons.org
The memo referred to is from Team 2, Box 6, "Memo Concerning Minders Conduct" Folder - see the finding aid:
http://www.archives.gov/legislative/research/9-11/finding-aid.pdf
The National Archives are open to the public, but for those who can't visit in person, copies can be ordered here:
http://www.archives.gov/research/order/
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Erik Larson
Washington, District Of Columbia, United States
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (3)
at 14:56 on April 27th, 2009
No surprise regarding the commission and the political circus involved with them, has any commission been truthful since the 1940's - always riddled with further questions rather then answers, results or truths...
By the way, please let me know in laymens (simple) terms - What is "A Minder(s)" ?
Thanks.
at 16:09 on April 27th, 2009
911 Commission: Lying F@#$s I call them...
at 19:09 on April 27th, 2009
I think we may still have many more stones to take out of the pass before we may ever have the whole picture and be able to asses what did really happen and why.