It sounded like Governor Thompson had no idea this memo existed. And Ashcroft intimated that the Commission knew nothing about the memo. Now, what makes that interesting is that one person on the Commission had to have known the memo existed — its author. If in fact everyone but her was in the dark about it, and if in fact her memo was as central to this whole “wall” problem as Ashcroft suggests, why didn’t she mention it? Presumably it’s relevant and even if it’s not there is definitely an appearance of relevance, which is a standard we know she’s familiar with. It’s not up to her — or shouldn’t be — to decide whether the Commission should know about this.

Indeed if you listened to Philip Zelikow’s “staff statement” at the begining of the hearing it was pretty clear that she would have had reason, cause and opportunity to mention it. Here’s what he said:

Finally, even though the number of agents devoted to counterterrorism was limited, they were not always fully utilized in the field offices. We learned through our interviews that prior to 9/11, field agents often were diverted from counterterrorism or other intelligence work in order to cover major criminal cases.
The second core challenge was a legal issue that became a management challenge as well. Certain provisions of federal law had been interpreted to limit communication between agents conducting intelligence investigations and the criminal prosecution units of the Department of Justice. This was done so that the broad powers for gathering intelligence would not be seized upon by prosecutors trying to make a criminal case. The separation of intelligence from criminal investigations became known as the wall.
New procedures issued by Attorney General Reno in 1995 required the FBI to notify prosecutors when facts and circumstances are developed in a foreign intelligence or counterintelligence investigation that reasonably indicate a significant federal crime has been, is being or may be committed.
ZELIKOW: The procedures, however, prohibited the prosecutors from, quote, “directing or controlling,” close quote, the intelligence investigation.
Over time, the wall requirement came to be interpreted by the Justice Department, and particularly the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, as imposing an increasingly stringent barrier to communications between FBI intelligence agents and criminal prosecutors.
Despite additional guidance on information sharing issued by Attorney General Reno in February 2000 and by Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson in August 2001, the wall remained a source of considerable frustration and concern within the Justice Department.
Justice Department prosecutors and FBI criminal agents were responsible for large criminal cases, like the embassy bombings. The intelligence side of the FBI, though, had the legal tools essential for domestic intelligence work, such as FISA surveillance. In this environment, domestic counterterrorism efforts were impaired.