Larry Pressler, Abscam, and the Hall of Fame 

by Ronald Kolb  7/30/2020

With the recent indictment of former Congressman and Abscam figure Michael "Ozzie" Myers for election fraud, the high profile FBI sting from 40 years ago was back in the news. And now eyes turn to former South Dakota Senator Larry Pressler, who is scheduled to be inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame this September. 

In 2014, Pressler was attempting to return to the Senate after an 18-year absence. Jonathan Ellis was a reporter covering the campaign for the Argus News Leader, the state's largest newspaper in Sioux Falls. I sent Ellis the transcript of the FBI undercover tape of Pressler made during the controversial Abscam investigation in 1979 as well as some background material showing Pressler has been less than honest about the penultimate event of his career. 

Ellis never mentioned it publicly, even though Pressler was using his dubious account of Abscam as the centerpiece of his campaign. I would find that other media in the state were aware of Pressler's fallacious account of the most significant event of his political life, but the Argus Leader and other news outlets in the state endorsed him, even though he would ultimately lose. 

Last year, Ellis endorsed Pressler in his bid for a seat in the South Dakota Hall of Fame. I contacted the Hall and at the time, he was rejected. But Pressler tried again this year. The current staff was unaware of my previous contact and this time, Pressler is now scheduled to be inducted into the Hall in less than two months. 

Pressler's career began in 1974, when the 32-year-old South Dakota registered Democrat approached the incumbent House Democrat Frank Denholm for a job, but there were no openings. Pressler changed his registration to Republican, ran against Denholm and defeated him. After serving just two terms in the House, Pressler ran for a Senate seat in 1978 and won. On September 25, 1979, just eight months after his victory, Pressler announced his candidacy for President in 1980.

Meanwhile Joe Silvestri, who was a real estate developer in New Jersey, was trying to obtain a license for a casino in Atlantic City, and learned what turned out to be fictitious FBI Abscam "sheiks," of "Abdul Enterprises" who told Silvestri that they were willing to invest millions, and also might need political help to immigrate to America for the right price. 

Silvestri eventually contacted a volunteer for Pressler's campaign, and told her some wealthy Arabs might be willing to contribute to his campaign, which is technically illegal. On the afternoon of November 7, 1979, Silvestri called FBI agent Anthony Amoroso who was part of the Abscam investigation, and told him that a scheduled House member would not be coming, but that Senator Pressler would be instead. Approval for a bribe offer quickly went up the chain, including then FBI Director William Webster. What Pressler would eventually say about the meeting was far different then what is in the official government transcript.

When Pressler and Silvestri arrived late that afternoon they were warmly greeted by Amoroso and Mel Weinberg, a con man working for the FBI who helped invent the sting. The transcript shows they discussed Pressler's primary campaign, then Amoroso mentioned that the sheiks, because of instability in the Middle East, would need assurances that they could come to America if necessary, and that the "right people" could help them. Pressler replied that, "my door is always open." Amoroso added that they want "guarantees from people" in case they need to leave. 

Pressler added, "they're gonna, wanna, for example, even if they wanna home here, they have to get a visa or become an American citizen...I mean that's what they want in the bluntest terms." Amoroso responded, "yeah, the bluntest terms,,,and they don't want to come here, and you know, get kicked out." Pressler interjected, "in the event of an overthrow or something like that." Amoroso added that "what we're trying to do is line up people who could be of service to 'em," and that he was aware that Congressmen "could introduce legislation."

Pressler adds "you can't really introduce legislation anymore," then mentioned former Congressman Henry Helstoski (D-NJ) who was indicted the previous session for taking cash from two South Americans to obtain green cards, and eventually lost his seat. "I knew him," said Pressler. Amoroso interjected that "I would like to do this, I would like you to research this thing, and see what you could do for us." 

"Yeah," responded Pressler, "it would be so hard to know because you'd have to persuade your colleagues, you know, and you'd have to have a reason...it seems that people who stand up for us get kicked in the teeth in the end...I mean my door would always be open to entertain people's problems...but I don't know if we can really assure these people that one Senator or even the Senate would, you know, even agree to this, you know, until they're presented with this matter." Pressler said he wasn't being evasive, but to "let me research this" and find out what he could do.

Amoroso said, "we've got the money, okay, and like I said, and I told Joe (Silvestri), you know, fifty thousand is no, you know, is no problem, putting that kind of money out. I don't care what you wanna call it, I don't care if you wanna call it a campaign contribution, you wanna call it, I don't, you know."

Pressler responded that, "well, but I'm not going to be like a President, you know, I mean I'm running for different reasons, to get my name known, and I'm a young Senator and so forth. And I mean, I would be surprised if I, I'm not saying I'm not going to be elected President, but we're gonna do well in some of the primaries...but I don't wanna-what we do, we're trying to run a viable campaign and we can't make any promises or any, you know, other to listen and be educated, and then to make a judgment, you know."

Amoroso hoped that Pressler could research it and see what he could do. Pressler replied, "sure, yeah....the people who have been friendly to us and, you know, we should be able to help 'em out as much as we can help them out...God, we help our enemies out more than we help our friends, but beyond a commitment to that, I mean like I can't promise that I would introduce "X' bill for "X" person...because I don't even know if I can." 

Amoroso told Pressler that the sheiks could invest in the state to give him better cover. "Sure," Pressler replied, "and helping constituents out." Pressler noted that for a potential bill, "you have to have 50, you have to have 51 Senators voting for it, and I would surely vote for anything that would help our people...but it would be hard to give you a guarantee." 

"Well, as long as you did your part to help them. I know there's no such thing as a guarantee," Weinberg added. "Yeah," Pressler replied, and added "I'm gonna have my staff prepare a memo" on what the processes were for a foreign citizen, and "I'll give you a copy of it." 

Amoroso suggests finding out what he can do and have another meeting, and Pressler says that "it would not be proper for me to promise to do anything in return for a campaign contribution," and that he could not make any promises. He added that "there are people who have introduced special legislation, when, when they keep a maid in the country for a year or longer, but that's become very suspect, you can introduce a special bill...so now there are people who check everybody who's introduced a special bill and they ask you what your purpose was, and so it's, it's not easy to do."

Amoroso again brings up investing in the area to show a reason to help. Pressler noted he had to get back to the Senate. Several pleasantries were exchanged, and Pressler and Silvestri left the Townhouse. Pressler's presidential campaign was short-lived. He withdrew from the race in early January, before any primary or caucus had even taken place. Less than a month later, on the night of February 2nd, 1980, Abscam went public, and Pressler quickly realized that he'd been taped. 

On February 4th, he approached all three TV news networks, and told Walter Cronkite of CBS what he would soon tell the rest of the press about the meeting at the townhouse three months earlier (which actually lasted about 25 minutes). "After two or three minutes, I stood up and said the purpose of the meeting was different than what I was led to believe. I repeated three times the word 'illegal' and stormed out of the house." 

That night, Cronkite led off the broadcast with Pressler's portrait on the screen behind him saying, "Good evening. Listen to the words of South Dakota Republican Senator Larry Pressler commenting on the attention he's getting because he avoided the tentacles of the FBI sting operation called Abscam. Said Senator Pressler, 'I turned down an illegal contribution. Whatever have we come to if that's considered heroic.'" 

The next day, Pressler spoke with the late Jim Lehrer of PBS. "Somebody said, 'why didn't you report it?' Because there was nothing offered to me." Pressler also spoke to the New York Times that day and said he did not report the meeting to anyone because no formal bribe offer was made. The FBI and Agent John Good, who were busy covering up for illegal actions by Mel Weinberg, went along with Pressler's charade.

In 1982, when Congress was investigating Abscam, the House asked Pressler to testify, but he sent a letter instead. On his own letterhead, he wrote that "an additional question arises, is why my meeting was not reported. In fact, there was nothing to report, because no bribe offer was made to me. There was nothing suggested about any money for me personally; nothing suggested about anything that they wanted; and nothing suggested that they would in any way suggest doing anything wrong."

But back in 1980, Pressler would quickly become the celebrated hero of Abscam, and soon would turn Cronkite's quote that Pressler had given to him into Cronkite himself having called him a hero. But six months after Abscam went public, famed investigative reported Jack Anderson wrote in the Washington Post about what was really on the tape. "Pressler did a pretty classy job of conning the American public about his supposed Sir Galahad role." Anderson added that after Abscam went public in February that Pressler had, "leaped on his snow-white charger," and had "righteously rejected" the bribe offer. 

"Unfortunately for the Senator", Anderson wrote, "the secret FBI videotapes of the meeting leaves a little tarnish on the shining armor in which he has decked himself." Anderson added that Pressler chatted amicably for about a half an hour both before and after an offer of money was made, but even though he said he could not take a campaign contribution Pressler had "never reacted angrily to the hints of a bribe; he did not use the word "illegal" once, let alone three times; and he did not storm out of the room after two or three minutes."

Summing up, Anderson said about Pressler that "apparently, he couldn't resist the temptation to work out his own Abscam on the public."

Four years later, in the book "Capital Corruption," noted sociologist Amitai Etzioni wrote about Pressler and the tape, which he had seen, and sarcastically noted that, "you must be a 'hero' not to take money,"  He added that "sadly, I must report, heroes are rare in Congress, and those who are quick to tout themselves would be better off silent." Etzioni said Pressler, "did not storm out of that meeting any more than you 'storm' out of a dinner party after you have finished dessert and bidden farewell to your host." 

Pressler ignored and never acknowledged anyone who wrote about what was really on the tape. He was reelected to the Senate in 1984 and 1990, but was finally defeated in 1996, losing to Democrat Tim Johnson, but would remain in Washington for the most part, even considering at one point running for Mayor, and later setting up a lobbying firm. In 2008 and 2012, Pressler publicly endorsed Obama. In early 2013, Tim Johnson, who had suffered a stroke years earlier, but had made a nearly complete recovery, decided not to run for reelection the following year.

Then in December of 2013, the movie American Hustle was released. It bore little resemblance to the truth and did not involve Pressler's misleading story, but several members of the press were contacting Abscam's self-proclaimed hero. It was then that Pressler decided to run again, but added a new flourish to his story: He had contacted the FBI in 1980 after the bribe offer was made. On December 26, the Bergen (NJ) Record, in a story about Abscam, reported that on his undercover video Pressler had said that, "wait a minute, what you are suggesting may be illegal," and that, "Pressler reported the incident to the FBI." Also, on the 26th he told the Washington Post that, "I've still got the tape somewhere."

Two months later, on March 2, 2014, American Hustle was up for several Academy Awards (but would win none) and Pressler's campaign ran a nationwide ad twice during the Oscar broadcast. It began with Pressler looking into the camera. "American Hustle shows the FBI making real life bribes to Washington politicians. I know because, as your U. S. Senator, I turned them down." Then the camera cuts to Amososo at the townhouse. "Fifty thousand is no-is no problem." Then there is a flawless jump cut about 10 minutes later from the 1979 videotape, with Pressler saying, "in any event, it wouldn't be proper for me to promise to do anything in return for campaign contributions." The ad cuts back to Pressler looking at camera in 2014: "This is the type of honest leadership I will bring to Washington, D.C."

What is the missing from those ten minutes is where Pressler said how difficult it was to get a bill passed in the Senate and that his staff prepare a memo and get together with the sheik's people. In the portion after the jump cut, Pressler again brought up how difficult it is to pass a bill "because now there are people who check and it's not easy to do," and that Pressler would be back in touch. 

As for Pressler's statement about campaign contributions, Silvestri had noted before the meeting that the rich Arabs were interested in making campaign donations, which Pressler would have to have known would been a crime if given from a foreign national. Some have suggested, and even Weinberg himself, that Pressler wanted the money just based on faith. 

The most likely way to know would be viewing the full tape to provide an answer, and Pressler has the full copy as he had told the Washington Post, and which he used in the highly edited campaign ad.

A month after the ad was shown during the Academy Awards, he wrote a column for the Huffington Post. He mentioned his current Senate campaign as well as the Abscam tape. "Wait a minute!" he quoted himself saying, "what you are suggesting may be illegal, and I would never do anything in exchange for a campaign contribution." Pressler then wrote "and with that, I stormed out of the house." 

As the campaign moved into August, another ad was produced, this time from the newscast of Cronkite back in 1980, where he had used the words that Pressler had fed to him.

On October 20, with the election only two weeks away, Pressler did a talk radio interview in South Dakota. I called to ask two questions. One, did he contact the FBI after the bribe offer. At the time I only had the New York Times interview just after Abscam broke, and would later find the 1980 Jim Lehrer interview and Pressler's letter to the House in 1982.

Second, I wanted to mention that what he was saying that had happened on the tape was far different then what the transcript showed, which I had a copy of, but would never get to ask him that question.

I did ask Pressler if he reported the bribe offer to the FBI. "Yes," he responded. I mentioned other recent articles saying that he did, but that he had told the New York Times three days after Abscam broke that he never reported it because he didn't consider it a bribe offer. At that point, he began talking over my question, and my connection was gone.

Pressler then gave a stuttering, stammering response that he had contacted Howell Heflin, then Chair of the Senate Ethics Committee (and who had died in 2005) and that Heflin would have contacted the FBI. However, I would soon find that Heflin had written a letter to Pressler in 1980 six months after Abscam had gone public and wrote him that the Ethics Committee recently reviewed his videotape, and "that the circumstances were insufficient to obligate you to report the matter."

Then as the radio interview in 2014 continued, Pressler mentioned that he had been favorably recognized by Walter Cronkite. After a commercial break he addressed the issue again, saying that he was made into a sort of character hero nationally and internationally because of Abscam, and referenced me as a nitpicker, and that "nitpickers out there, 'alert', you're not gonna get away with this one."

Three days after the interview, he appeared at a press conference in Sioux Falls, but according to an article by Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, Pressler said that he didn't want to brag about Abscam before he starting bragging about Abscam, and again took Walter Cronkite out of context.

Pressler was locked in a three-way race but eventually finished a distant third. The next year, Pressler published a book, "An Independent Mission" about the campaign, and that he had been inundated with media requests for his self-proclaimed role as Abscam's hero. The back cover states that after turning down the bribe, "he immediately reported it to the FBI," and that "Walter Cronkite referred to him as a hero."

In 2016, now again as a Republican, Pressler campaigned for Hillary Clinton for president, even appearing at the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia, and kept boasting to anyone that he was Abscam's hero. He made a number of disparaging comments on TV and elsewhere about Trump.

When Hillary lost, Pressler, now living in Washington, started to associate with people close to Trump, in an obvious move to join the new administration. After failing to do so, he wrote columns for the Deseret News in Salt Lake City until last year, including one puffing up his role in Abscam.  

Pressler has gone from Democrat to Republican to Independent and once again to a Republican, showing that not only is he an opportunist, but his behavior and false and misleading comments about Abscam as well as claims that he had reported the bribe offer shows he lacks any kind of moral compass as well.

Much the same can be said about the media in South Dakota who continue to enable him, and who are in reality a miniature version of today's mainstream press. And now, if his current attempt to be enshrined at the South Dakota Hall of Fame succeeds, he will stain the reputation of the Hall forever. I recontacted the Hall earlier this year after Pressler was listed as a future inductee, and the current staff was unfamiliar with the info I sent last year. I resent it to CEO Greta Chapman who forwarded all the info to the Board of Directors. 

I recently spoke with Michelle LaVallee, chair of the board, and she said that all of the members were aware of Pressler's false account of Abscam and the factual account by Jack Anderson, but made the choice to accept him into the Hall based on his history as an elected official. I pointed out that Pressler was last elected in 1990 and has been living primarily in Washington, DC and not South Dakota since then.

I also noted that when he unsuccessfully ran for the Senate just six years ago, he again pushed his false narrative of Abscam, and then added the new element that he had contacted the FBI back at that time, which he did not. I also asked if she would request a full copy of the Abscam tape from Pressler, which he has, but she stated she would not. 

Still LaVallee held firm, and I pointed out that there seem to be no heroes in South Dakota, except for the four presidents on Mount Rushmore, and she added that many do not think that they are heroes. So apparently the Board thinks Pressler is, whom their website calls a man of "high moral character." A person who would qualify as a lifetime charlatan, hustler, liar and con artist is due to be inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame, and permanently stain that institution, and the State of South Dakota as well.



Afterword 8/8/20: I contacted a few of the members of the Board of Directors. One told me she was a personal friend of Pressler and then alluded to his only noteworthy bill in the Senate, the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

The bill allowed for cross ownership in media markets and helped conglomerates to form, therefore raising prices, and helped to defeat Pressler later that year. She did not contest the fact when I asked if he was a fraud and a charlatan.

Another member told me there was now no way to stop Pressler from being inducted next month. A third member said that I wouldn't like how he voted, even though he agreed Pressler was dishonest and agreed to read the article. 

One other item not noted in the article: when Pressler failed in his attempt to become DC mayor in 1998, he claimed without proof that he attended the Martin Luther King, Jr, "I have a dream" speech in 1963. However, 20 years later, Senator Pressler voted against making King's birthday a holiday. 

    

Jerry Nadler and the Terrorists

   Jerry Nadler and the Terrorists by Ronald Kolb

   Congressman Jerrold Nadler, who represents New York's 10th congressional district which includes most of Manhattan's west side and parts of Brooklyn, has a long, controversial and sometimes disturbing history. He is a man of the far left, who became an ardent defender of Bill Clinton as a member of the House Judiciary Committee during his impeachment in spite of the evidence. Now, as chairman of that same committee, he has been desperately searching for a way to impeach Donald Trump, again, in spite of the evidence. 

   But more troubling and gut wrenching is his history of supporting some of America's most violent and deadly terrorist groups. One group had conducted their deadliest attack in his own district and he ultimately defended them. The other he had taken a personal hands on approach to free two of its most notorious members, one of them this very year, and both of them had been involved with deadly robberies.

   In 1998 when the Clinton impeachment saga began, Nadler tried to undermine it, and said that even if Clinton had committed crimes, they weren't impeachable. Nadler repeatedly and personally attacked Special Counsel Kenneth Starr and attempted to have him investigated, fired and prosecuted by then Attorney General Janet Reno, saying "he has broken the law six ways from Sunday," similar to what he has said about President Trump. 

   Nadler also tried to bury the Starr Report because it included Grand Jury material. The report included 11 possible grounds for impeachment in four categories: perjury, obstruction of justice, witness tampering and abuse of power. When the four counts came up for a vote in the full House, two of them (perjury and obstruction of justice) passed, but when they went to the Senate, but both counts ultimately failed.

   But for Nadler, far more disconcerting is his open support and defense of deadly terrorists. Back in 1974, the terrorist group FALN (Armed Forces of National Liberation) formed. They were a small but committed group dedicated to independence for Puerto Rico from America who actually wanted to align with Cuba, and were trained to commit violence in the form of bombings nationwide in order to achieve it. They set off over 130 attacks between 1974 and 1983.

   To understand why none of the terrorists should have ever received clemency, one just need to look at their brutal and violent history. The FALN was co-founded by Oscar Lopez and Carlos Torres who operated mostly in Chicago, with William Morales in New York. Lopez taught the others to make bombs, and Morales would build a number himself. 

   Their first series of attacks were bombs set off at the entrances to five different office buildings in midtown Manhattan in the early morning of October 26, 1974. FALN "Communique #1" left in a phone booth claimed credit and demanded the "immediate and unconditional independence of Puerto Rico." 

   On December 11, 1974 they decided to step it up a notch when a policeman was deliberately targeted. It was rookie Puerto Rican officer Angel Poggi's first day on the job and the final call of the night was a report of a dead body on 110th Street. When Poggi entered the building, he pushed on a rigged door, and a bomb went off in his face, throwing him back 20 feet and destroying his right eye. The FALN claimed credit for the targeted attack in another communique.

   Then on Friday, January 24, 1975 the FALN struck again and raised the level of violence even further. At historic Fraunces Tavern in lower Manhattan, young diners at lunchtime, many from nearby Wall Street, were preparing to return to work. At one table in the Tavern were six men, most in their early 30's, including Frank Connor, who worked his way up to assistant vice president at Morgan Guaranty Trust and whose two young sons were preparing to celebrate their joint birthdays that fell that same week in the evening. Two of the others were potential clients from a chemical company in Philadelphia, Frank Gezork and Alex Berger, then only 28, and whose wife Diana was six months pregnant with their first child. At the Anglers Club dining room upstairs, businessman 66-year old Harold Sherburne was finishing his lunch. 

   When the bomb went off in the tavern, it blew a hole in the ceiling, immediately killing Sherburne. In the tavern itself there was total horror and chaos. Connor and Berger lay dead, and Gezork would soon die at the hospital. More than 60 were injured, some grievously. Once again, there was a communique found at a nearby telephone booth. "We, the FALN, the Armed Forces of the Puerto Rican Nation take full responsibility for the especially detonated bomb that exploded today at Fraunces Tavern with reactionary corporate executives inside." Near the conclusion of the communique, they warned, "you have unleashed a storm from which you comfortable Yankis cannot escape." Over the coming months, more targets were struck in New York, Chicago and Washington at the front of government and office buildings, and ten people were injured in Chicago, some of them seriously.

   Then on August 3, 1977, the FALN struck with a fury, holding all of New York in terror. At 9:30 that morning at a Defense Department office on Madison Avenue, employees saw a handbag in the hallway. It was brought inside and employee Thomas Sweeney decided they should evacuate the area and seconds later the bomb went off, destroying the office. Then at 9:40, false alarms were called to the Empire State Building and World Trade Center and both were evacuated. Then at 10:30, Marie Torres, wife of Carlos Torres, arrived at the employment office at Mobil Oil on 42nd Street with an umbrella, filled out an application leaving a fingerprint, and left behind her umbrella with a bomb hidden inside. When it exploded, five people were seriously injured, and Charles Steinberg, 26, who ran a local employment agency, was dead. He left behind a widow and two brothers. 

   Bombings continued on in New York, Chicago and Washington. Then on May 12, 1979, the FALN suffered their first setback. William Morales was in a bomb factory in Queens when one he was building detonated in his hands, leaving him with no fingers and a pot marked face. He was convicted in 1979, including for bomb making charges and was in New York's Bellevue hospital four years later for follow up surgery and then was aided in an escape, and fled to Mexico where a police officer was killed in a shootout trying to arrest him. He was then given asylum in Cuba, where he remains a fugitive. 

   After Morales was sidelined, the attacks were focused on Chicago and even U.S. government locations in Puerto Rico. Then the terrorists suffered another setback. On April 4, 1980, in Evanston, Illinois near Chicago, observant citizens reported two suspicious parked vans filled with occupants, and they were found to be filled with weapons and ammunition. They were preparing to rob an armored car, and eleven FALN members were promptly arrested, including Carlos and Marie Torres, but Oscar Lopez was not among them. 

   Marie Torres was extradited to New York to stand trial for the murder of Charles Steinberg and she was quickly convicted. Back in Chicago, new recruit Alfredo Mendez became a witness against the remaining nine, and he testified how the still missing Lopez taught and trained them how to make bombs. 

   After they were convicted in February 1981, they each appeared before Judge Thomas McMillen for sentencing, and each took turns threatening him. "You are lucky that we cannot take you right now," said FALN member Carmen Valentine. She called the judge a terrorist, and added that her shackles kept her from killing him. Dylcia Pagan, whose then-husband was bombmaker William Morales, addressed the court. "All of you, I would advise you to watch your backs." Ida Rodriguez told the Judge, "You say we have no remorse, you're right." Judge McMillen told them "I'm convinced you're going to continue (terrorism)...if there was a death penalty, I'd impose the death penalty without remorse." 

   On May 12, when it was revealed publicly that Mendez had gone into witness protection, a few still at-large members in New York quickly reacted in anger and four days later bombs were placed at numerous locations around the city. A caller warned that a bomb would be detonated at Kennedy Airport at the Pan Am Terminal. When the bomb exploded in a restroom there, 20-year old maintenance worker Alex McMillan was mortally wounded. The next day, a caller claimed they were an arm of the FALN and expressed anger at the Chicago trial. 

   The remaining at-large Chicago members coalesced around Oscar Lopez, but on May 29, he was arrested while making an illegal left turn. He was convicted and sentenced that August and received 55 years, including multiple weapons charges and seditious conspiracy. The FALN in New York was not through. In 1982, attacks resumed and the worst were on New Year's Eve. 

   Four bombs went off in lower Manhattan, including the Federal Building and Police Headquarters, maiming and blinding an officer and two bomb squad members.

   In Chicago on March 8, while under FBI surveillance at a Chicago apartment, Alejandrina Torres and Edwin Cortez were caught on videotape making bombs. The FBI then surreptitiously replaced the gunpowder with coconut charcoal. Meanwhile the terrorists conspired to free Oscar Lopez from Leavenworth, but the FBI foiled the plan. When the FBI learned that Torrez, Cortez and Alberto Rodriguez planned to set off bombs on July 4th in Chicago including two military installations, they decided to arrest them, and the three were eventually convicted, including conspiracy to make firearms. 

   Lopez would not give up on his plans to escape. In 1985, he conspired again to break out of Leavenworth, and the plan included flying a helicopter into the prison to affect an escape. Lopez made up a list of material: grenades, rifles, plastic explosives, bulletproof vests, blasting caps and armor piercing rockets. The FBI ended the plot with arrests in 1986, and Lopez was convicted in 1987 when another 15 years was added to his sentence, now making the total 70. 

   In 1999, though still unrepentant and somewhat less effective, Eric Holder behind the scenes had been trying to engineer a plan to free them beginning with his appointment two years earlier as Bill Clinton's Deputy Attorney General, but it was going nowhere. But Hillary Clinton was planning to run for the Senate in New York in 2000, and as 1999 progressed, it would later be discovered that her key people thought freeing the FALN would help her chances with the considerable Puerto Rican voter base in the state (even though there is minuscule support for the FALN and their cause.)

   Supporters for the group reached out to Holder for help, and they decided that if the FALN members expressed remorse, they could succeed in getting clemency. An advocate for the FALN, New York City Councilman Jose Rivera, personally approached Hillary on August 9, 1999 and gave her a packet of info on the FALN along with a personal letter asking Hillary to "speak to the president and ask him to consider granting clemency to them."  

   On August 11, 1999, Bill Clinton stunned the world and announced the clemency deal to twelve FALN members. The only problem is all of them refused to sign the document that was prepared for them to renounce violence. They were then given 30 days to accept or reject the offer. In the month that passed criticism grew, and Hillary repeatedly switched her position. Both Houses of Congress drafted resolutions condemning Bill Clinton's action. And the outcry from law enforcement as well as the victims and survivors of the FALN's deadly history grew. 

   Joe Connor, who was only nine when he lost his dad Frank in 1975 at Fraunces Tavern, reached out to Nadler's office. The location of the Tavern was in Nadler's district. "I called Nadler to request him to condemn the clemency offers. Instead, a spokesman insisted that the terrorists who were responsible for my father's murder were 'political prisoners' and therefore deserving of clemency." Connor added that he was taken aback, and "didn't press him on his arrogant, disgraceful and disrespectful reply."

   On the evening of September 8th, as time was running out, leftist attorney Jan Susler, who was representing the terrorists, stated that "they are not criminals", and announced that 11 of them, except for Lopez, had signed the agreement. She added that they would be freed soon from seven different Federal prisons and they were angry that any conditions of any kind were placed on them.

   On the morning of the 9th, the FALN members were quietly making final preparations to be released the next day. Also that morning when the House convened, they discussed the resolution for most of the next three hours with most members expressing rage, shock and anger for what was occurring. 

   Toward the end, Nadler took the podium and spoke for the next six and a half minutes, and said something a bit different then his office had told Joe Connor. "The rule of law says that before the Congress passes resolutions commenting on a particular criminal case it should know the facts and should hold hearings first and then have the resolution, not the other way around. This resolution, frankly is an outrage."

   Nadler continued that, "these people were not condemned as terrorists. They were condemned for the crimes of seditious conspiracy and weapons possession...they were not condemned of bombing anybody, planning to bomb anybody, murdering anybody. If they did it, they got away with it because that could not be proved. Maybe somebody else did it." 

   Nadler added that the clemency "is his (Bill Clinton's) privilege as President to make that decision...it is wrong for Congress to pass a resolution on an individual criminal case, and on the exercise by the President on his clemency and pardoning power. And so it is certainly wrong to do so before we have the facts and before we have the hearings...and if it (Congress) were going to, it should have the hearings and get all the facts out first, not act on the basis of political gamesmanship." 

   Nadler concluded that, "we did not hear about this resolution until yesterday...we heard a lot on this floor last year and in the Committee on the Judiciary about the rule of law. This makes a mockery of it."

   Congressman Vito Fossella from Staten Island then took the podium and said what this all about is "sending a clear and convincing signal to terrorists around the world and right here on American soil that there is no place for terrorism in an American democracy..."

   The title of the resolution was "Expressing the sense of Congress that the President should not have granted clemency to terrorists," and it was adopted overwhelming. The yeas were 311 and the nays 41 and 10 did not vote. How did Nadler vote? Even after what he said in expressing contempt for the resolution, he chose not to have it on the record voting "no" so chose instead to vote "present." Over in the Senate, the eventual vote to condemn was 95-2. 

   When the 11 terrorists were released the next day from Federal prisons around the country, some of them spoke with the press. They were glad to be out and some said they would continue their efforts. But not one of them expressed any regret or remorse. When Nadler and others defend the FALN and claim lack of proof, the fact remains that several communiques claimed credit for the attacks and four members were convicted of bomb making and one even of murder. William Morales was convicted of making bombs as were Edwin Cortes, Alejandrina Torres and Alberto Rodriguez, and Marie Torres was convicted of killing Charles Steinberg.

   And Oscar Lopez? He petitioned for parole in 2010. After a Parole hearing in early 2011, Joe and Tom Connor spoke, as well as Diana Berger and others. Lopez spoke and refused to accept responsibility. Amazingly, he was denied release by the Parole Commission. But in 2017, in one of his last acts, President Obama commuted Lopez's sentence. When Obama ordered Lopez to be freed, Diana Berger, widow of Alex Berger, said it was like a "knife in the gut."

   Jerrold Nadler not only defended giving freedom to dangerous unrepentant terrorists, but later was actively involved in freeing them himself. The genesis began when two domestic terrorist groups joined forces, the first being the Weather Underground, a violent anti-war group of the late 60's and 70's who had committed about two dozen bombings and was founded by Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorhn. The other group was the Black Panthers, also of the 60's and '70's, a violent group of mostly black men who believed in having a separate black nation.

   Most members of both groups lived underground, but when the Vietnam War ended, many came out and melded with society. However, some hardcore members were interested in overthrowing the government. The Weather Underground morphed into the May 19th Communist Organization, named after the birth dates of Malcolm X and Ho Chi Minh, and the Black Panthers became the Black Liberation Army. Between 1970 and 1976, they killed 13 police officers in unprovoked attacks. They usually involved ambushes, and the officers would be in pairs, sometimes both black and white.

   One of the BLA leaders was Joanne Chesimard aka Assata Shakur. In 1973, she was already wanted for two bank robberies and robbing two bars in Brooklyn that included a murder. On May 2nd she was in a car on the New Jersey Turnpike with two other BLA members. They were pulled over for a faulty taillight by two New Jersey state troopers, James Harper and Werner Foerster. The three occupants all had false ID and were armed. In the firefight that ensued, Chesimard shot Foerster twice. When he fell to the pavement, her gun jammed, and she picked up Foerster's gun and shot him twice in the head. She fled and was soon arrested. Foerster, 34, left behind a widow and three-year old son.

   That event was the catalyst for the two terrorist groups to join forces. In 1977, Chesimard was convicted, and in 1978, Susan Rosenberg, a member of the May 19th group, who had constantly attended the trial, came up with a plan to break Chesimard out of prison. Rosenberg was just 21, had grown up in Manhattan with two progressive and permissive parents who encouraged her to get involved and she would become thoroughly radicalized. Rosenberg correctly thought freeing Chesimard would bring the two groups close together, and she was right. They planned the escape from Clinton Correctional Facility in New Jersey for nine months.

   Over the previous three years, the BLA, including Marilyn Buck who was the only white woman in the group, had robbed two armored cars and two banks. So on September 11, 1979, they robbed two armored car guards at Paramus, New Jersey Mall and netted $105,000. Half the proceeds would go to a potentially free Chesimard.

   On November 2nd, members of the combined groups broke Chesimard out of prison, and it stunned America. It included combined members of the BLA and May 19th group, including Susan Rosenberg and Judith Clark, who had also attended the Chesimard trial. Clark had grown up in a Communist household and had joined the antiwar movement in 1969, including planned violent actions.

   They arranged for Chesimard to receive asylum from Cuba, and the two groups together would continue to embark on an even more deadly and dangerous path. On February 20, 1980, eight members, including Rosenberg and Clark, attempted to rob an armored car in Westchester County, New York, but failed when a guard refused to open the door. Then on April 22, they succeeded in robbing a Purolator truck in Northern Manhattan netting $529,000. Then, they ran into a string of bad luck, with seven unsuccessful robbery attempts between the fall of 1980 and May of 1981.

   But on June 2, 1981, they robbed a Brinks truck in the Bronx, but a security guard was killed. Rosenberg, Clark and Buck were in backup vehicles and Clark witnessed bags of money being wheeled out from a Manufacturers Trust Branch to be delivered to a Chase Manhattan Branch. She drove to the "attack vehicle", a yellow Plymouth station wagon where the BLA team were waiting and told them the truck was coming. When Brinks guards Joseph Moroney and Michael Schacter got out of the truck, they were hit multiple times without warning. The driver remained in the truck and was not hit, but Moroney was killed instantly and left behind a widow and three children. It took Schacter three months to recover. The terrorists transferred the money to a rented van three miles away and made off with $292,000.

   Another Brinks robbery was four months off, but they wouldn't let what happened deter them. The armored car robberies usually comprised of the "action five" of BLA members, and Mutulu Shakur would drive the attack vehicle up to the armored car and they would commit the actual robbery. The other half were white women from the May 19th group who would be in cars as lookouts, spotters and backups and in the event of an emergency give up their seats to BLA. 

   Susan Rosenberg had been assessing more possible sights to attempt another robbery, and came across one that might be quite fruitful: a Brinks pick-up in Nanuet, New York at the Bank at the Nanuet Mall about 35 miles from New York City. The escape route would take them to nearby Nyack and then they would escape north on the NY State Thruway, There would be a sixth member of the action five and two former members of the Weather Underground, David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin, who shared a child of 14 months and dropped him off with a baby sitter. Judith Clark would also leave behind her daughter, less than a year old, as she had done on several previous robberies. 

   If the robbery went well, Shakur had planned to have the secondary team of May 19th women to obtain floor plans and place a bomb in a Brooklyn police precinct. The planning and execution would cost money, and he thought the Nanuet robbery would provide it, but sometimes the haul would end up supplying drugs for the BLA. But, after Rosenberg returned from a surveillance run, they were awestruck by the size of the potential take.

   On the afternoon of October 20th, 1981, Gilbert and Boudin would drive a U-Haul to a designated transfer point behind a bankrupt and closed Korvette's Department store, while the attack team, armed with M-16's and 9-millimeter pistols in a red van, arrived at the mall. Rosenberg was nearby in a white Oldsmobile and Clark in a tan Honda. At 3:55, Brinks guards Peter Paige and Joe Trombino were wheeling bags of money into the Brinks truck. As Trombino loaded the first bag, the terrorists jumped out of the van and began firing, and Paige would be dead in seconds. He was 49 and left behind a widow and three children. 

   Trombino, 48, was hit in the arm when he tried to take cover in the truck. His left arm was nearly severed and it took three surgeries to save it (he would tragically die on September 11, 2001 while making a delivery to the World Trade Center). James Kelly, the Brink's driver, stayed in the truck but suffered a concussion after they repeatedly shot the windshield. The robbers threw six bags of money into the van and sped to the switch point, but the U-Haul at first missed seeing them. When they finally hooked up, four sacks of money worth $1.3 million was thrown in the U-Haul, two bags containing $600,000 were put in Clark's Honda and the BLA group transferred into the back of the U-Haul. The vehicles sped away, leaving the now empty van. 

   But an alert college student living nearby witnessed the transfer, called the police mentioning the black men and the U-Haul and a roadblock was quickly set up at the Route 59 entrance ramp of the Thruway near Nyack. Four officers were there and blocked passage of the vehicle, approaching with guns drawn. Boudin got out of the cab and tried to convince Officer Brian Lennon to lower his shotgun. Sergeant Ed O'Grady told Lennon to put the gun away, who started to put the gun back into his car. Detective Arthur Keenan told Boudin he wanted to see what was in the back of the truck.

   Suddenly, the door flew upward and the six men jumped out, firing at anything wearing blue. Keenan was wearing plainclothes but was hit twice, took cover behind a tree and returned fire. Waverly "Chipper" Brown, the only black on the Nyack force, was hit and fired off rounds but was then hit again and fell when one of robbers fired more shots into him. O'Grady emptied his gun, but while crouched behind his patrol car reloading, another gunman walked over to him and shot him three times with an M-16. 

   Lennon was in his patrol car trying to get his shotgun out of the rack when he was fired at and returned fire. Then the U-Haul started to back toward him, and he unloaded his pistol as the U-Haul struck his vehicle and the robbers fled. He tried to get out of the car, but O'Grady, now mortally wounded, was blocking it. Lennon desperately wanted to do something to help O'Grady as well as Brown but others would soon arrive to assist.

   Meanwhile, an off-duty officer, Michael Koch, who had been caught in the roadblock, got out and approached Kathy Boudin. She started fleeing down the side of the Thruway and he chased her on foot, caught her but she resisted at first. One of the shooters carjacked a BMW and escaped, stranding the two passengers. 

   David Gilbert jumped out of the U-Haul and hurried over to Clark's Honda, taking the passengers seat, followed by Sam Brown, one of the BLA shooters, who got in the back. Meanwhile, Marilyn Buck had tried to retrieve a gun from her boot during the shootout and shot herself in the foot. She hobbled over to Rosenberg's car and sprawled into the backseat. Another shooter, Samuel Smith, got into the passenger side. 

   South Nyack police chief 29-year old Alan Colsey had heard O'Grady and Lennon on the police radio planning on blocking the U-Haul, and then heard two officers were down and raced to the sight. As he arrived, he saw a tan Honda and white Olds fleeing the scene, the latter which just missed hitting his car, and began a high-speed pursuit. 

   The two cars were running red lights, and the Olds swerved to avoid an ambulance on the way to Brown and O'Grady. The road then led to a difficult T-Intersection and a concrete wall. The Olds managed to make a sharp right turn, but the Honda skidded and crashed into the wall. 

   The Olds continued on, but Colsey got out of his car and focused on the disabled vehicle. Clark kept trying to restart the Honda, but could not. Colsey focused his gun on the car when Gilbert emerged, and began walking toward him. Colsey ordered him to put his hands up and stop, and had to repeat it twice. Then Clark started to climb out feet first, but was trying to reach under her seat. 

   She tried to coax him to come over, but Colsey yelled at her to come out with hands up. She finally did, but later officers found that Brown's 9-millimeter handgun has slid under her seat. Brown was semi-conscious and had to be removed from the Honda. The two bags from the robbery were found in the Honda, the over four were left behind in the U-Haul. 

   The reaction of the New York area was shock, sadness and anger. The funerals of the three men dominated the headlines. The streets for the two officers were filled with citizens and police locally and from around the country to pay their respects. 

  

   Four of the terrorists, including Clark, were now under arrest. Samuel Smith was killed in a shootout on October 23rd, and before the end of the year, another armored car and bank were robbed. Over time, most were arrested, tried and convicted. Mutulu Shakur and Susan Rosenberg were among the last to be caught. 

   In the minutes after the Brinks robbery, Rosenberg had fled to an acupuncture clinic in the Bronx that Shakur also ran as a safehouse for the terrorists. When she arrived, Shakur was already there, and she said that Clark may be dead. An injured Marilyn Buck was with her and she took her to Alan Berkman, a doctor who was sympathetic and would soon become criminally involved. 

   During the high speed chase, an alert teenager had memorized the license number of Rosenberg's Oldsmobile that Colsey had pursued. It led authorities to a safe house New Jersey. They found an astonishing amount of material and hit lists, including a bomb-making manual, diagrams of six Manhattan police precincts, the Queens House of Detention, police duty rosters, names of individual officers, the International Association of Police Chiefs, Joint Terrorism Task Force, 'N.J. Troopers,' and 'Boston--certain pigs’, Theodore M. Appleby, the New Jersey judge who presided at the Chesimard trial, and a detailed file of former President Nixon's residences. 

   In November of 1982, a Federal indictment was issued for members of the combined terrorist groups. Rosenberg was indicted for the Chesimard escape; the Brinks robbery in June of 1981 where Moroney was killed; the Brinks robbery four months later where Paige, Brown and O'Grady were killed and three other attempted armed robberies. 

   Her fugitive status drastically changed on Thursday night, November 29, 1984. Rosenberg, then 29, was arrested with Timothy Blunk, 27, at a public storage facility in Cherry Hill, New Jersey near Philadelphia. They were hauling a trailer carrying 730 pounds of explosives and 14 weapons, including a sawed-off shotgun, Uzi submachine gun, M-14 rifle, five revolvers, a rifle with a telescopic sight, boxes of bullets, and copies of "The Anarchist Cookbook" and "Guerrilla Warfare." 

   Some of the explosives were leaking and could have detonated and taken out the entire area. As the two were arraigned, Rosenberg shouted, "we're caught, but we're not defeated. Long live the armed struggle!” Bail was set at one million for Rosenberg and a half million for Blunk. The indictment which covered the weapons charges a week later was a staggering 16 pages. When they appeared before Judge Frederick Lacey in Newark, Rosenberg claimed "we are innocent. We are not criminals or terrorists."

   When they were convicted in March, a joint statement claimed, "we are not surprised by the verdict, but there is no victory here for the U.S." Rosenberg asked for the maximum sentence-58 years, and they both got it. Rosenberg said that "we are going to organize in prison. We are going to keep struggling." U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani dropped the Brinks charges assuming she would serve a lengthy sentence. As she was led away, Rosenberg raised her fist in defiance.

   Rosenberg would claim that none of the cache of bombs found had been used, but it turns out that some of them already had. They had been stolen from Texas and New Hampshire, were stored in Connecticut, and were being transferred to New Jersey when Rosenberg was caught. 

   The government eventually discovered in 1988 that Rosenberg and six others including Blunk, Marilyn Buck and Alan Berkman had been using the stash and starting in early 1983 bombed eight targets in New York and Washington (including the Capitol) and ending in early 1985 shortly after Rosenberg's arrest in late 1984, when their supply finally ran dry. An indictment was issued on May 12, 1988.

   They had called themselves the "Armed Resistance Unit." There were no injuries but considerable property damage. It began with the Federal Building on Staten Island; in Washington at Fort McNair Army Post; the Washington Navy Yard computer center; and the Capitol in November. In 1984, it continued at the Israeli Aircraft Industries building in New York; the Washington Navy Yard at the officer's club; the South African consulate in New York; and finally at the Patrolmen Benevolent Association in New York in February 1985. 

   Before their bombing material had run out after Rosenberg's arrest, they had planned bombing the Old Executive Office Building in Washington across from the White House, the DC office of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland and Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. 

   The fact that no one was injured during the Capitol Bombing on November 7, 1983 was mostly chance. The Senate had planned to work later that evening, but went more smoothly than expected, adjourning just after 7. A crowded reception near the Senate chamber ended just after 10 P.M. At 10:58 a thunderous explosion tore through the Capitol's north wing, and luckily no one was injured. Minutes earlier, the "Armed Resistance Unit" called to warn a bomb had been placed near the chamber. 

   The blast blew off the door of Senator Robert Byrd's office, blew a hole in the wall outside the Senate chamber, did extensive damage to a conference room, the Republican cloakroom, mirrors, chandeliers, statues and paintings, had blown out four windows, and made cracks in the building's structure. The damage totaled more than a quarter million of 1983 dollars. A communique stated that "we did not choose to kill any one of them (leaders) this time. But their lives are not sacred."

   At their trial in 1988, six of the defendants, including Rosenberg, pleaded innocent, calling themselves "anti-imperialist political prisoners." A seventh, Elizabeth Duke, was and still remains a fugitive. In 1989, a District Court Judge ruled that it would be double jeopardy to try defendants using the same evidence in more than one trial, as it would for Rosenberg, Blunk and Berkman. 

   Rosenberg had already received the maximum 58 years for the weapons charge, which she had requested, and even though the State Supreme Court overruled the double jeopardy decision in 1990, defense lawyers began focusing on that issue. So that December, a plea deal was worked out that the other three defendants would plead guilty while charges against Rosenberg, Blunk and Berkman for the bombings would be dropped. 

   In 1993, as Rosenberg's first parole was approaching, her mother contacted far left Rabbi J. Rolando Matalon of B'nai Jeshurun synagogue on the upper west side which the Rosenberg's and Nadler attended, so Nadler was contacted for help. The congressman sent a letter to the New York State Parole Board on July 18, 1994, which included Matalon's assessment that Rosenberg had altered "her views about social change." 

   U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White then sent a letter to the Parole Board in November opposing Rosenberg release, saying that compelling evidence pointed to her complicity in Brinks robbery and murders and Rosenberg was denied release. In 1997, Timothy Blunk received parole, but when the Parole Commission examined Rosenberg in 1998, she denied involvement in the Chesimard escape and the Brink's robberies and was denied parole again. Rosenberg later wrote that "I felt like I would burst out of my skin." 

   Then in August 1999, Bill Clinton offered clemency to the FALN, and Rosenberg thought that might lead to an avenue for her freedom, and applied for a federal pardon with the U.S. Pardon Attorney. Her network of lawyers and radical friends started to make contacts, and she was introduced to Howard Gutman, from the Williams and Connolly law firm, who had deep ties to the Democratic Party and Bill Clinton, and Gutman would become her lawyer.

   And as luck would have it, she was contacted by John Marks, a leftist writer and producer for 60 Minutes with CBS, who put her in touch with Steven Reiner, who was a senior producer there. Reiner told Rosenberg he had been a member of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) an anti-war precursor to the Weather Underground, and was sympathetic to her cause. 

   She spent hours with notable liberal correspondent Morley Safer and the 13-minute segment aired on December 17, 2000. Safer asked what her reaction was to the Nanuet Mall robbery. "Horror, fr--horror. Very--I mean I was very upset." Safer asked if she thought of getting out of the group. "N-no, not right then. Subsequently, I would say that. But not right then."

   Safer asked "how could you not have known what was going on?" Rosenberg said, "Well, I didn't. I may have--I mean, I didn't know what was going on. No, ah. That wasn't my--I wasn't--that wasn't my role, you know...that didn't mean that I did it."

   Midway through the segment, John Castellucci was shown briefly. He had written "The Big Dance" the definitive book dealing with the murderous history of the two combined terrorist groups. He was quoted as saying that Rosenberg was a fervent member of the group but left out his comments that Rosenberg was involved with the deadly Brinks robbery. "I knew which way they were going," he told me.

   Safer then mentioned Clark's Honda, which had crashed fleeing the scene. Mary O'Melveny, another Rosenberg attorney, noted everyone was arrested in the car but Rosenberg wasn't there, and claimed they only found a map with her fingerprints in the glove compartment, and that Rosenberg's fingerprints were later found on "political leaflets." She failed to mention that there was another car fleeing the scene driven by Rosenberg.

   Safer concluded the segment noting Rosenberg had filed for clemency with the White House and pardons are usually considered in the final weeks of a presidency. There was no mention of charges involving the Chesimard escape; Armed Resistance bombings in New York and Washington; the first fatal Brinks robbery or any other robberies. 

   Nadler and Matalon were contacted again, and Nadler passed on "compelling" information about Rosenberg's case to the White House. He would use the same argument that 60 Minutes did, which was filled with falsehoods and deliberate omissions, and Nadler boasted about it a few years later. "I couldn't pressure, but I certainly helped...she was accused of involvement in the Brinks robbery, in which a couple of cops were killed." He flippantly dismissed Sergeant O'Grady and Officer Brown and made no mention of Peter Paige or Joseph Moloney, the security guards murdered at the two fatal robberies.

   And no mention was made of Chesimard or the New York and DC bombings, including the Capitol. Nadler noted Rosenberg had been overcharged on "dynamite, small arms, and other stuff," and received 58 years, "which was a hell of a sentence," Nadler mentioned the Brinks robbery, "but she claims she is innocent...she goes to jail, goes through a lot of hell, changes her attitude, etcetera, etcetera."

   Rosenberg later wrote that "an important congressman" (Nadler) had seen Clinton at a dinner and Rabbi Matalon was discussed. As the days and hours passed toward the end of the Clinton administration, Rosenberg showed even more anger and contempt for prison officials and staff than usual, including verbal threats and contemplating physical violence. The word came through to Danbury, Connecticut prison at 11:45 A.M., January 20th, 2001, with 15 minutes left of Clinton's term that she was pardoned.

   She also expressed contempt for having to sign the ten conditions for parole. She was free, and going to celebrate with family and friends. But the victims of Rosenberg and her deadly group will never be free. They left four widows and 12 children behind. Gregory Brown, the son of Nyack Officer Waverly Brown said, "I can't describe the hell my family endured, and growing up without my father's influence." Brown was 17 when his father was murdered. "He was supposed to help me, he was supposed to be there."

   And Rosenberg? She continues to write, do interviews and panels praising the BLA, the FALN and other terrorist groups and express admiration for the likes of Joanne Chesimard, Mumia Abdul-Jamal and Leonard Peltier, but never mentioning they're convicted murderers. And worth noting, she supports the abolition of all prisons. 

   As for Judith Clark, after Alan Colsey arrested her, she literally acted like an animal. At one point, Clark bit, spit at and kicked her captors. She decided to boycott the trial, shouting "death to U.S. imperialism," and refused to have a lawyer appointed to represent her. In 1985, when she was sentenced to serve at least 75 years without the possibility of parole for the three murders, she told the court in front of the victim’s families that "revolutionary violence is necessary." 

   But 20 years later in 2005, Clark sued the government for not assigning her a lawyer (which she had initially refused) in a desperate to overturn the conviction, but three years later her scam was completely rejected.

   In 2012, Clark began a media campaign, starting with a New York Times article filled with omissions and half-truths, and her now-adult daughter, who she had left with others during the robberies, was brought in for sympathy. 

   Then in September 2016, she got a surprise visit in prison from Governor Andrew Cuomo who met with her for a full hour. He chose not to speak with any law enforcement, or the officers or survivors that had suffered that horrific day. He got "a sense of her soul," and recommended the parole board free her in 2017. 

   On March 28, Nadler sent a letter to the state parole board recommending clemency for "Judy" Clark. He was joined by other leftist politicians, including longtime FALN supporters from Congress Jose Serrano and Nydia Velazquez. "No doubt parole in some cases will cause great pain to victims and their families," they wrote, "but we implore you to grant her release."

   Then three weeks later, a miracle happened. The parole board unanimously overruled Cuomo 3-0 and denied Clark release, and the commissioners had been appointed by three different governors: Pataki, Spitzer and Cuomo himself.

   After her rejection, she told the New York Times less than three weeks later that she "just wanted to live it out," so in December of 2017, Clark sued the parole commission, saying the board showed "obvious contempt" for her. The time for a hearing on the suit was April of 2019, but it never took place. Because of Cuomo's recommendation in 2016 that was overruled, it guaranteed Clark another parole hearing earlier in April. 

   So Nadler sent yet another letter on Clark's behalf on April 2nd, and one of the co-signers was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. They stated that Clark had "disavowed violence," and "expressed contrition," to the parole board.

   And Cuomo had left little to chance. This time, two of the three commissioners were appointed by him, including one, Tana Agostino, who had misrepresented her past, and the vote was 2-1 last April. Clark was released in May and Agostino is the subject of a lawsuit by Officer Keenan and Peter Paige's son Michael. 

   The dissenting vote was by William Smith, Jr., a Pataki appointee. He mentioned her plans to escape after her conviction which added two years to her sentence and Clark's prior criminal conduct before her arrest. Smith wrote that, "what will not diminish is the loss felt by the loved ones. The sounds of their weeping will remain."

   Jerrold Nadler now wants to target Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was confirmed a year ago. But Nadler should sit in judgment of no one. His blatant hypocrisy in the impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1999 as opposed to his obvious bias now should easily preclude him. But what is far worse is his behavior in helping to free some of America's most dangerous terrorists that had plagued our country over the last five decades.