I knew about pardon scandals of Clinton cronies during his final days in office, but I had long forgotten about this. It's written by the sister of the Sept. 11 American Airlines' Captain (the plane that crashed into the Pentagon), an attorney.
According to Ms. Burlingame, as Hillary was gearing up for her Senate race in a move for votes, the Clintons ignored federal guidelines to pardon 14 convicted Puerto Rican terrorists. The Clintons muzzled the FBI, "Bushed" congressional investigation (executive privilege, etc.), and manipulated the press's coverage. This was a trade for votes.
"And there you have it. Votes."
And Hillary wants to push Ayers as an issue? These guys were convicted on a mountain of evidence for crimes more recent and, arguably, more egregious than Ayer's. Check out Burlingame's February Wall Street Journal story. Snippets below.
Votes
Jeffrey Farrow, a key adviser on the White House Interagency Working Group for Puerto Rico recommended meetings with the president and the three leading members of Congressional Hispanic Caucus who were pushing the effort, stating in a March 6, 1999 email, "This is Gutierrez's [sic] top priority as well as of high constituent importance to Serrano and Velazquez." The next day, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Maria Echaveste sent an email to White House Counsel Charles Ruff, who was handling the clemency issue, supporting Mr. Farrow's view, saying, "Chuck -- Jeff's right about this -- very hot issue." Another adviser in the Working Group, Mayra Martinez-Fernandez, noted that releasing the prisoners would be "fairly easy to accomplish and will have a positive impact among strategic communities in the U.S. (read, voters)." (emphasis added)
The Terrorism
By 1996, the FBI had linked FALN to 146 bombings and a string of armed robberies -- a reign of terror that resulted in nine deaths and hundreds of injured victims.
It was nearly 10 p.m. on New Year's Eve, 1982. Two officers on New York Police Department's elite bomb squad rushed to headquarters at One Police Plaza, where minutes earlier an explosion had destroyed the entrance to the building. Lying amid the carnage was Police Officer Rocco Pascarella, his lower leg blasted off.
"He was ripped up like someone took a box cutter and shredded his face," remembered Detective Anthony Senft, one of the bomb-squad officers who answered the call 25 years ago. "We really didn't even know that he was a uniformed man until we found his weapon, that's how badly he was injured."
About 20 minutes later, Mr. Senft and his partner, Richard Pastorella, were blown 15 feet in the air as they knelt in protective gear to defuse another bomb. Detective Senft was blinded in one eye, his facial bones shattered, his hip severely fractured. Mr. Pastorella was blinded in both eyes and lost all the fingers of his right hand. A total of four bombs exploded in a single hour on that night, including at FBI headquarters in Manhattan and the federal courthouse in Brooklyn.
The FALN
The perpetrators were members of Armed Forces of National Liberation, FALN (the Spanish acronym), a clandestine terrorist group devoted to bringing about independence for Puerto Rico through violent means. Its members waged war on America with bombings, arson, kidnappings, prison escapes, threats and intimidation. The most gruesome attack was the 1975 Fraunces Tavern bombing in Lower Manhattan. Timed to go off during the lunch-hour rush, the explosion decapitated one of the four people killed and injured another 60.
And Hillary claims to have been vetted?
I admit my distrust for the Clintons has increased significantly since Iowa. I used to be willing to give them a pass on this or that. No more.
Now I regard Clintons as just one set of oozing sores. They're not vetted, and they're incredibly vulnerable to fact-based shortcomings. Not "fun." Not fun, and certainly not trustworthy.