As I'm sure you can imagine, this WSJ article has an unmistakable anti-Clinton bias:
WSJ: The Clintons' Terror Pardons
However, the facts of these pardons were, and still are, damning.
The prisoners were convicted on a variety of charges that included conspiracy, sedition, violation of the Hobbes Act (extortion by force, violence or fear), armed robbery and illegal possession of weapons and explosives -- including large quantities of C-4 plastic explosive, dynamite and huge caches of ammunition. Mr. Clinton's action was opposed by the FBI, the Bureau of Prisons, the U.S. attorney offices that prosecuted the cases and the victims whose lives had been shattered.
I'm really not sure where to start in explaining this one. Although the events took place in 1999 they shed light recent events in the Clinton campaign.
FALN is a Puerto Rican separatist group resposible for a series of bombings in the 70s and 80s.
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.
In August 1999, outgoing President Clinton quietly issued pardons for 16 FALN members. This quickly became a major controversy and the president was forced to explain.
His comments, including the astonishing claim that the FALN prisoners were being unfairly punished because of "guilt by association," were widely condemned as a concession to terrorists. Further, they were seen as an outrageous slap in the face of the victims and a bitter betrayal of the cops and federal law enforcement officers who had put their lives on the line to protect the public and who had invested years of their careers to put these people behind bars. The U.S. Sentencing Commission affirmed a pre-existing Justice Department assessment that the sentences, ranging from 30 to 90 years, were "in line with sentences imposed in other cases for similar terrorist activity."
I would quote more of the article describing how strong the legal case against the prisoners was, but suffice it to say, these guys were as guilty as it gets. Two of them were caught on video building bombs.
Given all this, why would Bill Clinton, who had ignored the 3,226 clemency petitions that had piled up on his desk over the years, suddenly reach into the stack and pluck out these 16 meritless cases?
Indeed, why? The article speculates that the votes of 1.3 million Hispanics in NY provided the reason.
Initial reports stated that Mrs. Clinton supported the clemencies, but when public reaction went negative she changed course, issuing a short statement three weeks after the clemencies were announced. The prisoners' delay in refusing to renounce violence "speaks volumes," she said.
Apparently none of the prisoners actually asked for clemency. Two of them decided to serve out the rest of their sentences rather than sign a statement of remorse. If we're going to pardon violent separatists shouldn't we be at least asking something from them, like information?
Mr. Clinton's fecklessness in the handling of these cases was demonstrated by the fact that none of the prisoners were required, as a standard condition of release, to cooperate in ongoing investigations of countless unsolved FALN bombing cases and other crimes. Mrs. Clinton's so-called disagreement with her husband on the matter made no mention of that fact. The risk of demanding such a requirement, of course, was that the prisoners might have proudly implicated themselves, causing the entire enterprise to implode, with maximum damage to the president and potentially sinking Hillary Clinton's Senate chances.
Hillary's reversal on the pardons did not go over well with the Puerto Rican communities she was trying to cozy up to in the first place:
The first lady called her failure to consult the Puerto Rican political establishment before assessing the entire issue a mistake "that will never happen again" -- even as the cops who had been maimed and disfigured by FALN operations continued to be ignored.
An investigation by the Republican-controlled House met a brick wall when President Clinton invoked executive privilege to prevent Justice Department opinions on the subject from becoming public. (Sound familiar?)
The investigation revealed that the White House was driving the effort to release the prisoners, rather than the other way around. White House aides created talking points and strategies for a public campaign on the prisoners' behalf included asking prominent individuals for letters supporting clemency.
For the final nail in the coffin, flash back to March 1999 when the White House Interagency Working Group for Puerto Rico was debating the topic of potentially pardoning the FALN prisoners:
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)."
The "(read, voters)" line is from the original quote of the WH hack, not the WSJ or me.
I'll leave it to you to draw parallels or contrasts with the recent behavior of the Clinton campaign. Another item for discussion: how might this play in the general election? And lastly, has there ever been a non-incumbent nominee for President with as much baggage as Team Clinton would have?