dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

A Manhattan congressman and his rabbi played a crucial role in President Clinton’s controversial pardon of former Weather Underground member Susan Rosenberg, aides said yesterday.

Rabbi J. Rolando Matalon of Temple B’nai Jeshurun showed Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler “compelling information from [Rosenberg’s] parole hearing” and “passed on the concerns of her family,” said Nadler spokesman Eric Schmeltzer.

That intercession played a key role in Clinton’s decision Friday to commute the 58-year weapons-possession sentence for Rosenberg, long a suspect in the deadly 1981 Brink’s robbery in Nyack. She was never convicted on that charge.

“What [Nadler] did was to pass on the materials to the White House counsel’s office and say, ‘I’d like you to take a look at this,'” Schmeltzer said.

Neither the rabbi nor Nadler, who was well-regarded at the Clinton White House because he was one of the president’s most ardent defenders during Sexgate, could be reached for comment yesterday.

Clinton himself refused to comment on his 11th-hour pardons of Rosenberg and 139 others.

“I’m out of office now. I’m not talking anymore,” he told reporters outside his home in Chappaqua.

His wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, also sidestepped the issue.

“You’ll have to ask him [Clinton]. It was his decision,” she said.

Meanwhile, criticism of the pardons continued to pour in.

“She [Rosenberg] was not a white-collar-crime person,” said Mary Crowley, whose brother, Sgt. Edward O’Grady, was gunned down in the botched Rockland County armored-truck robbery. “She was associated with a terrorist organization.”

O’Grady, fellow Police Officer Waverly Brown and Brink’s guard Peter Paige were killed during the Brink’s robbery, in which Weather Underground radicals tried to pull off a $1.6million heist.

Though the Brink’s robbery happened nearly 20 years ago, for those touched by the tragedy, it is still an open wound.

“The whole family is very disappointed,” said Crowley’s son, John Hanchar, who spoke with O’Grady’s widow, Diane O’Grady, after the pardon.

“She’s just stunned and hurting,” Hanchar said.

So are officers who worked side-by-side with the slain cops.

“I’m not happy about it at all,” said retired Officer Brian Lennon, Brown’s partner at the time. “Shame on President Clinton. Shame on him for moving to New York and letting her go.”

On another pardon front, Mayor Giuliani called for a congressional investigation into Clinton’s reprieve of fugitive financier Marc Rich.

Rich has been wanted for 17 years on charges of evading $48 million in taxes and of making oil deals with Iran while American hostages were still being held in Tehran.

“He’s never paid any price at all for the crime he committed,” said Giuliani, who, as a federal prosecutor, pursued Rich.

Mary Jo White, the current Manhattan U.S. attorney, said Clinton violated Justice Department guidelines by failing to notify her office he was pardoning for Rich and others.

Justice Department sources that, although Rich is still a fugitive, the FBI wasn’t notified either.

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Fractals; that's all we are…