The Los Angeles Times has examined documents leading up to the 1999 pardon of 16 convicted members FALN, a Puerto Rican nationalist group responsible for multiple robberies and bombings. Apparently, Holder was actively working behind the scenes to turn over previous Justice Department recommendations against pardons.
Holder instructed his staff at Justice's Office of the Pardon Attorney to effectively replace the department's original report recommending against any commutations, which had been sent to the White House in 1996, with one that favored clemency for at least half the prisoners, according to these interviews and documents.
And after Pardon Attorney Roger Adams resisted, Holder's chief of staff instructed him to draft a neutral "options memo" instead, Adams said.
The options memo allowed Clinton to grant the commutations without appearing to go against the Justice Department's wishes, Adams and his predecessor, Margaret Colgate Love, said in their first public comments on the case.
"I remember this well, because it was such a big deal to consider clemency for a group of people convicted of such heinous crimes," said Adams, the agency's top pardon lawyer from 1997 until 2008. He said he told Holder of his "strong opposition to any clemency in several internal memos and a draft report recommending denial" and in at least one face-to-face meeting. But each time Holder wasn't satisfied, Adams said.
For some reason, Eric Holder really pushed for these pardons. This was despite the warnings from his pardon attorney, Roger Adams.
* Adams listed numerous reasons why the Justice Department should continue to oppose clemency, including that most commutations were inappropriate given the crimes and sentences.
* He reminded Holder that Holder had in previous cases given "considerable weight" to the recommendations of federal prosecutors, and that any clemencies would "contravene the strong negative recommendation of two United States attorneys."
* Adams also warned that the convicts' release would undermine at least four pending prosecutions and investigations of FALN members, and hamper FBI efforts to apprehend some of their co-conspirators and recover millions in bank money stolen by the FALN.
"Questions may be raised about why the department is recommending that clemency be granted to persons who belong to a group the FBI director has identified as such a domestic terrorist threat," Adams wrote in the memo. * Adams warned that the groups' victims had not been notified.
Clearly, this was something that the Clinton administration wanted to do. Perhaps, as has been alleged, they wanted to win support from Puerto Ricans ahead of Hillary Clinton's 2000 run for the Senate. Otherwise, there doesn't seem to be any reason why there was such a push to pardon these convicts without even trying to get some information from them.
ome of Adams' concerns were borne out. Before their release, the Senate Judiciary Committee concluded, none of the prisoners was pressed to provide information on the whereabouts of stolen funds or fugitive co-conspirators -- one of whom was later killed in a shootout with federal agents.
As Attorney General, Eric Holder will be a leader in how we fight against terrorists. He needs to explain why he was eager to get pardons for convicted terrorists.
3 comments:
Shame. Only a racist would expect Holder to tell the truth.
If only someone in the GOP had the nerve to ask Holder the question! But it appears the so-called leadership is already telling members not to oppose Obama on anything. A recipe for further losses in 2010.
I recently read Finding Manana, a great book, which mentions that Fidel Castro was a heavy backer of FALN.
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