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The man who served as the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s top domestic terrorism expert while the bureau was intensively reviewing the possible grant of presidential clemency to a group of convicted Puerto Rican terrorists says he would not have recommended their release.
In August, apparently despite a contrary recommendation from the FBI, President Clinton went ahead and granted clemency to 12 members of the Federation for National Liberation (FALN) and four members of Los Macheteros. Both are domestic terrorist groups seeking national independence for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
In 1997, when serving as chief of the FBI’s Domestic Terrorism/Counterterrorism Planning Section, Robert Blitzer drafted a memorandum to the Justice Department’s chief pardon attorney, Margaret Love, outlining the FBI’s views and recommendations concerning the proposal that President Clinton release the terrorists. When the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee subpoenaed the White House and Justice Department for all documents relating to that release, however, President Clinton invoked executive privilege to deny Congress the right to see Blitzer’s memo and a series of related notes.
Not nice people
Blitzer has since retired from the FBI, so Human Events contacted him directly to see what his views were regarding the release of the terrorists. Did he think releasing them posed a risk to the American people?
“Inherently I do,” said Blitzer. “I’m not sure if these particular guys will commit acts of violence, but they are certainly guys who espouse violence and I don’t think they’ve renounced it. The group as a whole remains dangerous. I certainly wouldn’t have recommended that they be set free.”
Under the law, when a president invokes executive privilege to deny documents to Congress, he is required to provide Congress with a “privilege log” listing the date, producer, recipient and nature of each privileged document. Blitzer’s memorandum to Love was only one of several documents prepared by law enforcement officers that was listed on Clinton’s log. It is fair to assume that these documents included an assessment of the security risk that would be created by releasing jailed members of the FALN or Los Macheteros.
Blitzer said that the FBI would have included the bureau’s recommendation on whether to grant clemency as part of any clemency revue.
“The bureau makes evaluations and makes recommendations,” he said.
Would professionals evaluating the threat posed by such terrorists consider not only the likelihood that those individuals would themselves commit acts of violence, but also the effect that their release would have in reinvigorating or energizing a dormant group?
“Both, it’s both,” said Blitzer. “You have to look at their history and that has to go into any evaluation.”
Did the release of the Puerto Rican terrorists create the risk of invigorating or energizing violent elements in the Puerto Rican independence movement?
“That’s a fair statement,” said Blitzer. “Some are charismatic figures, some remain believers. They made a great sacrifice for the cause, they are recognized as martyrs, people who are looked up to by others in the group. Anything they say certainly, within the group, is listened to closely.”
Retired Special Agent Rudolph Valadez spent 25 years in the FBI and retired as head of the bureau’s Los Angeles-based counterterrorism task-force. During his FBI career he also spent time in Puerto Rico investigating domestic terrorists in San Juan and elsewhere. He is familiar with both the FALN and Los Macheteros.
“If I had been asked to analyze this [the pardon request], I would have gathered all the evidence and put together a viable brief that would have been weighted heavily against releasing them,” Valadez told Human Events. “I would have told them that the evidence we used to put them in jail warranted keeping them there.”
Valadez questions the justification for releasing the terrorists. “You have to wonder at the underlying philosophy,” he said. “You have to ask questions about their release. Why was it done? Why is it beneficial? Was it good for the country? I’d have to say, No.” It’s hard enough to catch terrorists to begin with, he said.
“Once you’ve got them, you don’t let them loose.” Mexico released Fidel Castro and look what happened there, he said. “These are not exactly nice people.”
Valadez pointed to an incident in which terrorists in Puerto Rico ambushed a Navy school bus and sprayed it with bullets, killing two sailors and wounding others. The terrorists, he said, also sabotaged A-7 military jets and reportedly fired explosive devices at Puerto Rican public buildings. Valadez agreed that releasing the terrorists did increase the risk to Americans.
“The seeds are back in the soil, you could say,” he said. “These were the people who were doing it and they were motivated by a tremendous desire. They were intent on overthrowing the United States. The FALN is still a powerful organization in all parts of Latin America.”
“They committed something like 130 or 140 acts of violence,” he said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that, if they need money to further their goals, they will return to violence to get it. The danger is they are trained, they possess the tradecraft.” They could, he said, pass on to others the techniques of terrorism.
Among other documents Clinton is claiming executive privilege for and refusing to release are a June 1999 clemency review memo sent by the FBI’s Robert Burnham to James Reynolds, chief of the Justice Department’s Terrorism and Violent Crimes Section, and a clemency review prepared by Michael S. Young, supervising agent of the FBI counterterrorism unit in Puerto Rico.
©1999 Human Events
