The mainstream media and political elites continue their hypocritical attack on President Trump’s pardoning of Army Lt. Clint Lorance, Green Beret Maj. Matt Golsteyn and Navy Seal chief Eddie Gallager; three men who dedicated their lives to the protection of America.
Little mention has been made that in August 1999 the Clintons offered executive clemency (commuting sentences) to sixteen members of the infamous Marxist Puerto Rican terrorist groups Los Macheteros and Armed Forces for National Liberation (together “FALN”).
There was no mention that in his last days in office, President Obama handed a second clemency to FALN leader Oscar Lopez Rivera, who was so dedicated to his cause and his comrades that he refused the 1999 Clinton grant and chose to stay in prison.
The FALN waged war against America with over 120 bombings between 1974 and 1985 murdering five, including my father Frank Connor and three others (wounding 60) on January 24, 1975 during the horrific lunchtime bombing of New York’s historic Fraunces Tavern. Fraunces was specifically chosen by the FALN as it is the cradle of liberty in the United States. It is where the Sons of Liberty met and where General George Washington bid farewell to his officers after our war for independence was won.
The terrorists were arrested, tried, convicted in the early 1980s and sentenced in Chicago to appropriate prison terms of 55 to 90 years.
None of the terrorists requested clemency. So dedicated were they to their “war” against America and in creating a Cuba like Communist Puerto Rico, that none accepted the clemency which included conditional renunciation of violence for a political cause and disassociation with other felons. None other than future AG Eric Holder engineered the politically driven clemency to help Mrs. Clinton gain traction with Latinos for her upcoming 2000 NY senate race. Although clemency is an individual grant, Holder and the Clintons allowed the terrorists 30 days to decide during which they were allowed conference calls with each other between prisons.
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On September 10, 1999 all but one FALN terrorist, Oscar Lopez Rivera, accepted the terms and walked out of prison; most to heroes’ welcomes. Lopez defiantly refused. As a small group of FALN victims and victims’ family members heard when we kept Lopez in prison at his 2011 parole hearing and from his rhetoric since, Lopez refused clemency because he still believes in his cause and his comrade Carlos Torres (released in 2010) was not offered clemency in 1999. Lopez, who was sentenced to an additional 15 years for a violent escape plan revealed himself as an unrepentant terrorist captain, going down with the ship.
But that changed in January 2017 when Barack Obama, during his final days in office, offered that unprecedented second clemency to unrepentant terror leader Oscar Lopez Rivera.
Since release, the terrorists have been treated as heroes by the left and the media. Not only are they forgiven, but they’ve been treated as if they committed no crimes at all. In February 2017, Chicago named a street for Lopez, a man who terrorized Chicago.
New York’s Mayor DeBlasio attempted to honor Lopez with a “Freedom Hero” award at the 2017 Puerto Rican Day Parade until a small group of us convinced all corporations from Goya Foods to JetBlue and the New York Yankees to pull their sponsorship.
Imagine, a Freedom Hero award for a terrorist who attacked freedom with the goal of subjugating Puerto Ricans in a Marxist state.
Lopez has gone on the guest speaker circuit from Cuba to Venezuela and to American Universities such as Metropolitan State University in Minnesota and Hofstra on Long Island railing against the United States for “colonizing” Puerto Rico, thus justifying my father’s murder.
Mr. Trump pardoned three men who dedicated their lives to our country and our people, while Clinton and Obama offered freedom to terrorists who murdered our father and dedicated their lives to America’s destruction.
And Mr. Trump is attacked?? American People are fed up!
Pardon my disgust.
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