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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: truedog who wrote (62267)	11/9/1999 6:38:00 AM
From: Zoltan!	Respond to of 67261

Clinton lies again: PREZ'S AIDE SAW FALN PARDONS HELPING GORE By DEBORAH ORIN and MARILYN RAUBER -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WASHINGTON - A new bombshell document on President Clinton's get-out-of-jail deal for FALN terrorists shows a key White House aide said freeing them could boost Vice President Al Gore politically. "The VP's Puerto Rican position would be helped," says the e-mail sent in March by Jeffrey Farrow, head of Clinton's Inter-Agency Group on Puerto Rico, to Clinton's deputy chief-of-staff, Maria Echaveste. The memo says "the issue should be resolved soon," and suggests that congressional advocates of FALN clemency might meet with Gore if Clinton weren't available. It's one of several documents showing that key White House aides served as active advocates for freeing the prisoners linked to 120 bombings in the 1970s and 1980s. The news comes just days after a Hartford Courant report said the FBI found the FALN had ties to Cuban intelligence agents - and even shared its loot from a Wells Fargo Bank robbery with the Cubans. Clinton's justifications for freeing the convicted felons are contradicted by other documents in a House Government Reform Committee report to be released tomorrow, a copy of which was obtained by The Post. For example: Indictments linked the FALN terrorists to violent crimes, contrary to Clinton's claims, and reports show that U.S. attorneys "strongly" opposed freeing them - and that the FBI was "unequivocally opposed." Clinton claimed the sentences were too long under current guidelines, but the U.S. Sentencing Commission's staff director, Timothy McGrath, said the FALNers could have been tried for treason - and gotten life. Gore spokesman Chris Lehane said the vice president "was not involved" - although the documents indicate the veep discussed the issue with the Hispanic caucus in 1997 and 1998. Gore never took a public stand on FALN clemency. None of the new documents cites First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton - who flip-flopped from backing clemency to opposing it - although an investigator's report says that in August, one FALN prisoner expressed interest in her possible Senate race in New York. Notes by Farrow's assistant, Mayra Martinez-Fernandez, claim Reps. Jose Serrano (D-Bronx), Nydia Velazquez (D-Brooklyn) and Luis Gutierrez were threatening to vote against Clinton's pet projects "unless he commits to release prisoners right after 1996 election." Serrano last night told The Post that the assertion by Martinez-Fernandez - who is married to a top Gutierrez aide - was "absolutely not true." Another memo by Martinez-Fernandez says freeing the prisoners would "have a positive impact among strategic Puerto Rican communities in the U.S. [read: voters]." nypostonline.com