Spin Cycle
Inside Long Island, state and national politics and Election 2008
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Hill on Brinks radical: I didn't know!
In an interview yesterday, Hillary -- whose connection to President
Clinton's 2001 sentence commutations for two members of the Weather
Underground has become an issue since she tried to raise questions
about Obama's acquaintance with another ex-Weatherman -- told "Inside
Edition" that she "didn't know anything about" the 2001 clemency case.
You can watch the video below. If it's true, it means that she got the
worst briefings in the world when she was running for Senate in 2000
and the clemency issue was hot in Rockland County, and it means that
Chuck Schumer didn't even bother to mention the issue to his fellow NY
senator-elect/ First Lady after promising the widows of two dead cops
to fight against one of the clemencies.
Here's the chronology:
On October 19, 2000, as Hillary was hunting for Senate votes
throughout New York, Rockland County's biggest paper, the Journal
News, ran a front page story re****ting that imprisoned radical Susan
Rosenberg -- linked to the 1981 Weather Underground Brinks robbery
that left two Nyack cops dead -- was seeking clemency from Bill
Clinton.
The next day, the widows and fellow state and local police attended a
memorial service for the two dead cops at the site of the killings.
Also in attendance: Sen. Chuck Schumer, who in that fall was
frequently campaigning with Hillary. According to another front page
story, on Oct. 21, he made a pledge to the widows to fight the
clemency: "I intend to take our opposition as high as I can in
government."
On December 16, 2000, after Hillary became New York's Senator-elect,
the paper did another Page 1 story about an upcoming 60 Minutes
episode on Rosenberg's clemency application. It included a quote from
one of her new constituents, Diane O'Grady, wife of one of the dead
cops: "This is a woman who has taken lives."
On December 17, 2000, the "60 Minutes" piece on Rosenberg's case and
clemency request ran.
So, Clinton -- in her effort to avoid being connected in any way to
the case -- now says she knew nothing about it. Nobody briefed her,
either while she was running or after she was elected, on an emotional
hot-button issue that intersected her husband with her constituents.
Her husband, who invited her to sit in on a White House meeting with
another group of Rockland County residents seeking pardons for four
Hasidic members of their community, never so much as mentioned
Rosenberg.
And Schumer, after making a pledge to widows, never thought to even
bring it up with his fellow Senator-elect, who owed him for helping
her get elected, and recruit an ally who was widely seen as an
influential advisor to her husband, the president. This being the same
Schumer who figured out how to take the Senate away from the
Republicans!!!
We asked Schumer spokesman Josh Vlasto whether his boss ever spoke to
Hillary: "Chuck was the leading advocate against the pardons. He made
his arguments to the Justice Department....He talked to the people who
could effectuate the decision." We asked for a more direct and
responsive answer on whether he ever mentioned it to Hillary, and
couldn't get one.
In her assiduous efforts to have nothing to do with the Rosenberg
case, Clinton's spokesman has previously said she had no opinion about
it except to think that a presidential pardon is a presidential
pardon. Here she is, also never even knowing about it:
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