Darrell-
And Sleazebag Bill is certainly not above freeing thugs who are happy to maim and murder if it suits his electoral wishes. Gad, what a contemptible man this Clinton is. So are those who persist in their unwavering support of the little jerk. This quoted from an unsigned op-ed in today's WSJ:
<<We've been trying to figure why the President would pardon 16 Puerto Rican terrorists. Our thoughts turned to the annual Puerto Rican Day parade in New York. We'll bet Hillary Clinton knows all about this event. ... If you're a New York pol, you've gotta be there. This year's march drew three million people and virtually every politician the city has on offer.
Mrs. Clinton, of course, hopes one day to take her place in the parade alongside New York's other pols as La Senadora de Nueva York. Which, we'd say, explains in a nutshell why her husband has just granted clemency to these 16 Puerto Rican terrorists, against the advice of the Justice Department, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office that prosecuted the
terrorists back in the early 1980s. All these law-enforcement agencies were consulted several years about the wisdom of releasing these 16 people; all advised against it.
Among the terrorists on Mr. Clinton's clemency list is one Victor Gerena, whose name also appears on another list: that of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted. He was the inside man at the Wells Fargo Bank in Hartford, Conn., where the Puerto Rican "freedom fighters" stole $7.5 million in an armed robbery in 1983. At the time, it was one of the largest robberies in U.S. history. An FBI man lost an eye pursuing the criminals. Mr. Gerena subsequently fled to Cuba, the country, it emerged at trial, that was sponsoring the activities of the radical Puerto Rican separatists. Now he is free to return to the U.S.
Deputy White House Chief of Staff Maria Echaveste is quoted in yesterday's papers as saying that those offered clemency "never killed anyone." This is preposterous. No one died in the Wells Fargo heist but innocent people lost their lives in more than 100 attacks carried out by the same terrorist group on U.S. facilities. Even if these 16 terrorists didn't murder anyone directly, they were part of a conspiracy to kill, ...
To understand how rare it is for a President to commute a sentence or offer remission of a fine, as Mr. Clinton did for the 16 Puerto Rican terrorists this week, consider the numbers supplied by the Office of the Pardon Attorney. From the time he took office in January 1993 until April 2, the date the Office prepared its last report, Mr. Clinton had received 3,042 petitions for clemency. Until Wednesday, he had granted a total of three.
...
But Mr. Clinton's grant of clemency is properly seen as a raw political move to enhance the prospects of his wife against Rudy Giuliani. To win, all agree, she needs a big Hispanic turnout, and to get that she needs the support of
their leadership. The mayor won 43% of the Hispanic vote in the last election and remains popular in that community for his success in reducing crime. But this President has politicized or abused about every other prerogative of his office; why not the pardon power? |
