FALN

9/11, Clinton, Debra Burlingame, Eric Holder, FALN, Guantanamo, September 11, World Trade Center

Eric Holder for AG should not be put forward: Debra Burlingame

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Statement of Debra Burlingame
Co-founder, 9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America
January 15, 2009
Senate Judiciary Committee Confirmation Hearing for Eric Holder

Chairman Leahy, Ranking Member Specter and Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee:

I am writing to share my views about the nomination of Eric Holder to the position of United States Attorney General.

For the last seven years, I have taken a keen interest in the workings of my government. After the widespread institutional failures of the U.S. government to protect the lives and property of its citizens from terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, it was no longer acceptable to me to be a passive observer, to accept at face value what public officials tell us about the policies and decisions they make. 9/11 reminded us all that the decisions made in Washington have real world consequences for those far removed from the center of power.

On September 11, 2001, my brother, Captain Charles F. Burlingame, III, was murdered in the cockpit of his hijacked commercial airliner which was then crashed into the Pentagon, killing all 59 of its passengers and crew, and 125 men and women working at the Department of Defense. After that difficult day, I made a personal vow to become a better citizen, which starts with becoming better informed. Since then, I have contributed in the best way I know how, sharing what I have learned with others. It is in that spirit which I write to you today.

I am well aware of Eric Holder’s academic credentials, his record of accomplishments and the high regard in which he is held by some of his colleagues and associates. His qualifications for the position to which he has been nominated are plainly evident. However, Mr. Holder’s record is clouded by actions which even his supporters admit constitute serious errors in judgment, most notably, the role he played in a series of highly controversial Presidential pardons which issued while he held the position of deputy attorney general at the Department of Justice (DOJ).

I believe the facts surrounding Mr. Holder’s conduct with respect to these pardons seriously call into the question his judgment, character and independence, and cast doubt about his willingness or ability to serve both the President and the American people with equal dedication and vigor.

Barack Obama, Debra Burlingame, domestic terrorism, Eric Holder, FALN, Hillary Clinton

Eric Holder told subordinates to alter FALN pardon recommendations

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The Los Angeles Times today reported:

Attorney general nominee Eric H. Holder Jr. repeatedly pushed some of his subordinates at the Clinton Justice Department to drop their opposition to a controversial 1999 grant of clemency to 16 members of two violent Puerto Rican nationalist organizations, according to interviews and documents.

Details of the role played by Holder, who was deputy attorney general at the time, had not been publicly known until now. The new details are of particular interest because Republican senators have vowed to revisit Holder’s role during his confirmation hearings next week.
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Some religious groups and influential individuals, including President Carter, had endorsed the commutations. But Clinton’s decision outraged law enforcement officials, who had tried to contain a bombing campaign in New York, Chicago and elsewhere in the 1970s and 1980s by groups seeking independence for Puerto Rico from the United States.

New interviews and an examination of previously undisclosed documents indicate that Holder played an active role in changing the position of the Justice Department on the commutations.

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.

The 16 members of the FALN (the Spanish acronym for Armed Forces of National Liberation) and Los Macheteros had been convicted in Chicago and Hartford variously of bank robbery, possession of explosives and participating in a seditious conspiracy. Overall, the two groups had been linked by the FBI to more than 130 bombings, several armed robberies, six slayings and hundreds of injuries.

Although unmentioned in the L.A. Times’ report, none of the convicted FALN (and Los Macheteros) members personally requested clemency or pardon. Debra Burlingame wrote of this last February, in the Wall Street Journal: