February 12, 2008
The 'Forgotten' Clinton Scandal
There are plenty of juicy stories in the Clinton Archive for Dirt (CAD), but one tends to get tucked away and forgotten...the unprecedented pardon of the FALN bombers by Billy Jeff just over a year before he left office, and coincidentally...no, not coincidentally...when darling Hillary was on her first "listening tour" of the state of New York, preparing for her Senate run, and looking for a "positive impact among strategic communities in the U.S."
FALN is the Spanish acroynym for Armed Forces of National Liberation, a group dedicated to securing Puerto Rico's sovereignty. But instead of lobbying and petitioning, they decided to use bombs. Between 1982 and 1996, 146 bombings and numerous armed robberies resulted in nine deaths and hundreds more injured.
Debra Burlingame recounts not only FALN's horrific activities, but the events leading up to and directly following what is surely one of the more embarrassing gaffes committed by the Clinton White House -- and that's saying something. Be sure to read the entire riveting piece, but this key paragraph should not be missed:
While the pardon scandals that marked Bill and Hillary Clinton's final days in office are remembered as transactions involving cronies, criminals and campaign contributors, the FALN clemencies of 1999 should be remembered in the context of the increasing threat of domestic and transnational terrorism that was ramping up during the Clinton years of alleged peace and prosperity. To wit, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1995 Tokyo subway Sarin attack, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the 1995 "Bojinka" conspiracy to hijack airplanes and crash them into buildings, the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, the 1996 Summer Olympics bombing, Osama bin Laden's 1996 and 1998 "Declarations of War" on America, the 1998 East African embassy bombings, the 2000 USS Sullivans bombing attempt, the 2000 USS Cole bombing, and the 2000 Millennium bombing plot.
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