As Hillary Clinton is offered air time to recall her heroic actions for 9/11 victims and survivors, no one will recall the Clintons showing support for terrorists.
On August 11, 1999, the Associated Press reported on President Clinton’s decision to offer clemency to 11 members of FALN – Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional ("Armed Forces of National Liberation") – a militant “Puerto Rican independence group if they sign agreements renouncing the use of violence. Their group staged some 130 bomb attacks on political and military targets in the United States from 1974 to 1983.” The article quoted an administration official claiming “the prisoners were not involved in any deaths.” However, the article added that the group “killed six people and wounded dozens” during that ten-year period.
The most deadly and notorious attack came in 1975 at New York City's historic Fraunces Tavern, where in 1783 George Washington said farewell to his troops. A bomb by a doorway exploded during the lunch hour, killing four people and wounding 60.
This was clearly a political act to help Hillary Clinton win her Senate seat in New York, with almost a million Puerto Ricans in New York City alone. Imagine the media reaction if a Republican president pardoned terrorists to help a family member win an election. But this was Hillary Clinton. Network coverage on ABC, CBS, or NBC? They weren’t really interested, until Hillary’s campaign start backing away from her husband’s political ploy and opposed clemency.
On September 4 -- more than three weeks after the fact -- she denounced the clemency, with a Clintonian twist: It wasn't that her husband's commutation offer was improper, it was that the prisoners had not renounced violence as a condition. And then she added: She hadn't the foggiest idea that her husband was going to make this offer to a terrorist group.
On Fox News Sunday, Brit Hume couldn't believe the flip-flop. "Mrs. Clinton comes forward and says, 'I didn't know, my husband never told me, I didn't know.'....She's going to back out of the deal, expecteing that first, we'll believe it was clean thing the first time, and second, we'll believe she didn't know anything about it. I can't imagine people being gullible enough to buy any of it."
The networks labored to avoid occasions where they could underline the unpopularity of Clinton's clemency offer and the emotional punch of opposition from New York law enforcement officials and FALN victims.
Evening news coverage: A total of six full stories: two on ABC, two on CBS, two on NBC. Only one August 30 story by CBS's Jim Stewart preceded Hillary's sudden opposition to clemency.
Morning news coverage: A total of 11 segments (seven news stories and four interviews). That's if you count two partial stories that CBS aired (mixed in with other Clinton news), and half an interview on Hillary with NBC's Tim Russert. Only one August 31 story by NBC’s Fred Francis came before Hillary's flip-flop. Here’s what happened before that:
August 13: A Wall Street Journal editorial underlined the rarity of Clinton's offer: "From the time he took office in 1993 until April 2, the date the Office [of the Pardon Attorney at the Justice Department] prepared its last report, Mr. Clinton had received 3,042 petitions for clemency. Until Wednesday, he had granted a total of three." Big Three coverage? Zero. Only one use of the word "rare" by NBC's Andrea Mitchell reflected that fact.
August 23: New York Police Commissioner Howard Safir held a press conference featuring police officers injured by FALN attacks to criticize Clinton's offer. Big Three coverage? Zero, although CBS's August 30 evening story and NBC's August 31 morning story both contained a clip from it.
August 27: The New York Times reported, "A wide range of federal law enforcement agencies that were asked to review a clemency petition filed by imprisoned members of a Puerto Rican nationalist group unanimously opposed any leniency" before Clinton's decision. Big Three coverage? Zero. Law enforcement opposition surfaced in only five stories: three on NBC, once on ABC and CBS.
September 9: The House of Representatives voted 311 to 41, with about 70 Democrats voting "present" instead of standing with Clinton, to condemn the clemency offer. Big Three coverage? Zero, even though ABC's and NBC's morning shows mentioned the next day that the Puerto Ricans would be released that day. CBS Saturday Morning mentioned the release the next morning.
September 14: The Senate voted 95 to 2 on a resolution calling Clinton's clemency offer – get this – "deplorable." (Only Democrats Daniel Akaka and Paul Wellstone voted no.) Big Three coverage? Zero, except a sentence previewing the vote on Nightline.
Only CBS interviewed an FALN victim, policeman Anthony Senft. "We'll be following your testimony," co-host Thalia Assuras promised Senft. CBS viewers couldn't follow his testimony. It was spiked.
Even ten years later in 2009, the media couldn’t call the FALN terrorists. PBS NewsHour anchor Ray Suarez (who would later work for Al-Jazeera America) reported Attorney General Eric Holder was “questioned about his role in President Clinton's decision to grant clemency to 16 members of the Puerto Rican separatist organization FALN. The group was involved in a deadly campaign of bombings and robberies in the 1970s and '80s.”
