Part 2

While criminal obstruction of the USS Cole bombing investigation was bad enough, what was beyond the pale was when FBI Agent Margaret Gillespie working at the CIA found that both Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US on August 22, 2001. She took this information to former CIA officer Tom Wilshire and FBI HQ Agent Corsi. It is clear that they both knew immediately that Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US only in order to take part in a massive al Qaeda attack that would kill thousands of Americans.

So what did Wilshire and Corsi do with this horrific information? First they realized that they had to keep this information away from FBI Agent Steve Bongardt and the rest of the USS Cole bombing investigators. They knew if Bongardt ever started any investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi and then found the photograph of Walid Bin Attash taken at Kuala Lumpur, Bongardt would have immediately realized that he and his investigation of the Cole bombing had been criminally obstructed numerous times by both the CIA and FBI HQ.

In order to keep this investigation away from Bongardt, Corsi contacted Craig Donnachie, head of intelligence investigations at the FBI New York office on August 22, 2001 and requested that Donnachie immediately start an intelligence investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi, hoping an intelligence investigation would head off any criminal investigation by Bongardt and his team. On August 23, 2001 Donnachie indicated to Corsi that he would start an intelligence investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi, information Corsi sent immediately to Wilshire via email.

On August 23, 2001 Margaret Gillespie had the CIA Bin Laden unit issue a worldwide alert for Mihdhar and Hazmi, so the entire CIA hierarchy would have been aware that not only were Mihdhar and Hazmi inside of the US but because of Wilshire’s prior emails, plus the numerous warnings of a al Qaeda attack that the CIA had been receiving from April 2001, that they were inside of the US in order to take part in yet another al Qaeda terrorist attack. At the time of the August 24, 2001 6 hour meeting with President Bush, Tenet already knew that Moussaoui had just been arrested as a possible al Qaeda terrorist getting training on a B747, and that Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US in order to take part in a massive al Qaeda attack.

On August 28, 2001, Corsi sent Donnachie her EC to start an intelligence investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi, based mainly on the December 1999 NSA cable, from a telephone tap of a phone connected to the communications center for the al Qaeda attacks in east Africa, that indicated Mihdhar and Hazmi were al Qaeda terrorists traveling to an important al Qaeda planning meeting in Kuala Lumpur. When Donnachie got this EC on August 28, 2001 he gave it to John Liguori, his boss, who thought this EC connected Mihdhar and Hazmi to the Cole bombing and sent this EC the same day to Bongardt and his team.

Bongardt immediately realized how critical it was to locate Mihdhar and Hazmi quickly before they had any chance to carry out yet another al Qaeda attack and contacted Corsi to get permission to start this investigation. But he was told by Corsi, and her boss Rod Middleton, that since the information had come from the NSA, the “wall”, prevented him from possessing this information without written permission from the NSA, and he would have to stop any investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi and in addition destroy the information he had from Cori’s EC on Mihdhar and Hazmi.

Unfortunately we now know that Corsi had already been given written permission from the NSA (see DE #448) to pass this NSA information to Bongardt and his team in New York, on August 27, 2001 the day before she tells him he had to stop his investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi. Since Bongardt did not see any connection between this NSA information and any FISA warrant, the only real reason he could be denied this information without written permission from the NSA, he asked Corsi to get an opinion from the legal unit at FBI HQ, the NSLU to see in view of the fact that no FISA warrant had been used by the NSA to get this information, if he could take part in the investigation of search for Mihdhar and Hazmi.

On August 29, 2001, Corsi told Bongardt that the NSLU attorney had ruled he and his team could not take part in any investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi. But page 538, footnote 81 in the 9/11 Commission report says that the attorney, Sherry Sabol, told DOJ IG investigators on November 7, 2002, that she had told Corsi that since no FISA warrant was connected to this NSA information, Bongardt could take part in any investigation and search for Mihdhar and Hazmi. When Corsi shut down Bongardt’s investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi she knew as she admitted to the DOJ IG investigators, that the CIA had a photograph of Walid Bin Attash taken at Kuala Lumpur, (see page 302 of the DOJ IG report) knew that this photo connected Mihdhar and Hazmi to the planning of the Cole bombing and knew that this meant there was no legitimate reason Bongardt should not have been allowed to immediately start an investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi.

Almost beyond belief.. See Part 3