Why Did Ashcroft CHARTER Plane After Recieving July 2001 alQueda Warning?

[kpete]

7/01 - Why Did Ashcroft Charter Plane After Recieving alQueda Warning?

July 17, 2001 -- Ashcroft briefed. July 28, 2001-- Ashcroft flies in a charter, leased, according to the article, earlier that week.

Fishing rod in hand, Attorney General John Ashcroft left on a weekend trip to Missouri Thursday afternoon aboard a chartered government jet, reports CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart.

In response to inquiries from CBS News over why Ashcroft was traveling exclusively by leased jet aircraft instead of commercial airlines, the Justice Department cited what it called a "threat assessment" by the FBI, and said Ashcroft has been advised to travel only by private jet for the remainder of his term.

"There was a threat assessment and there are guidelines. He is acting under the guidelines," an FBI spokesman said. Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department, however, would identify what the threat was, when it was detected or who made it. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/07/26/national/main303601.shtml, dated July 26, 2001:

We SHOULD be asking whether that story has anything to do with this one:

State Dept. Confirms Rice-Tenet Meeting

Tuesday, October 3, 2006

McCormack said that after the meeting, Rice had asked that the same material be given to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Meanwhile, Ashcroft said Monday that he should have been notified of any such report dealing with a pending attack on the United States. "It just occurred to me how disappointing it was that they didn't come to me with this type of information," he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/03/AR2006100300410.html

more at:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/4/161326/154