Hillary's Shameful Response - Source: NY Newsday

December 15, 1999

• A broken plea agreement
• A false charge of treason
• Gross procedural errors
• Secret evidence
• Blatantly inaccurate evidence
• A grossly disproportionate sentence
• Ineffective legal counsel
• Ex parte communication between the judge and the prosecution

judicial inequities

Any one of these issues would provide ample grounds for First Lady Hillary Clinton to take a position on the Pollard case - how much more so the combined weight of all of the above.

Yet Mrs. Clinton continues to evade the issue. According to the Newsday article that follows below, the First Lady claims she needs to see the secret evidence against Jonathan Pollard -

which he himself is unable to see and which he has never been allowed to challenge in a court of law

Mrs. Clinton's own legal skills notwithstanding, why does she claim to need the assistance of the CIA - whose vested interests in the case have tainted their credibility and made have made them willing tools of an Administration that has subverted justice to serve political ends?

Mrs. Clinton's continued evasion of the Pollard issue during her meeting with officials of the Orthodox Union also shows a decided indifference to the issue of guaranteeing due process for all Americans.

The failure of the OU to challenge Mrs. Clinton on these issues regarding the Pollard case does the Jewish community no honor and certainly is no credit to their organization.

[The Newsday Article Follows.]

Hillary Meets Orthodox Jews

BY: By William Douglas. WASHINGTON BUREAU
DATE: 12-15-1999

Seeking to improve her standing among New York's Jewish voters, Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday met with Orthodox leaders to clarify her positions and denounce comments made last month by the wife of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Clinton was peppered with questions for more than an hour by 70 members of the Orthodox Union, an umbrella group that represents more than 1,000 Orthodox Jewish synagogues worldwide. The meeting was closed to the media.

Mandell Ganchrow, the group's president, said Jewish people have concerns about Clinton, especially after her Middle East tour last month when she sat silently as Suha Arafat accused Israeli forces of ruining the health of Palestinian women and children by using toxic tear gas to quell uprisings.

One Orthodox Union official who asked not to be identified said Clinton had improved her standing during yesterday's meeting.

Clinton said she thought the meeting went well. "I was able to express my deep commitment for the security and well-being for Israel..." she told reporters afterward. "I set forth a number of views that I would hold, were I in the Senate, the kind of aid that we would need to offer in order to make good on any peace agreement that Israel was able to reach with any of its neighbors." But Ganchrow declined to say whether Clinton helped alleviate some Jewish concerns. Ganchrow, who has heaped praise on Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Clinton's likely Senate opponent, in the past, characterized yesterday's meeting as a getting-to-know-you session.

"Look at this as courting," said Nathan Diament, director of the union's Institute for Public Affairs. "The Orthodox Jewish Community has been courting Rudolph Giuliani for more than four years. This is our first date with Hillary Rodham Clinton." Marcel Weber, chairman of the Orthodox Union's board, said Clinton was "articulate and well-prepared. Overall it was a positive impression." But, he added, "I can't say who will vote for whom." The first lady pleased some Orthodox Union members by saying that, as senator, she would consider aid to Palestinians only if they stop circulating anti-Semitic information through their media and school textbooks.

The United States does not provide direct aid to the Palestinian Authority. Most aid comes through non governmental organizations, according to David Leavy, a spokesman for the National Security Council. Still, Leavy said, President Bill Clinton has "raised the issue" about textbooks repeatedly.

Hillary Clinton also told the group that she is not opposed to the government looking at ways that are "constitutionally correct" to provide assistance to parochial schools.

A staunch opponent of government-funded vouchers for private schools, Clinton "expressed a sympathy and understanding for the burden that parochial school families have and thought this might be worth pursuing," Diament said.

Clinton's remarks came as Christian and Jewish leaders gathered in Albany to press the state to adopt a school-voucher or tax-credit system.

While Clinton answered most of the questions from the union members directly, she hedged on the issue of clemency for former Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard, who was sentenced in 1987 to life without parole for spying on the United States for Israel.

"We could not get her to commit on this particular issue," Granchow said. "She said if, and when, she gets to the Senate and is privy to intelligence material, she would then make a decision."