White House Is Subpoenaed Over FALN Clemency Deal

A congressman investigating President Clinton’s offer of clemency to 16 Puerto Rican separatists subpoenaed the White House on Wednesday for information on the separatists’ purported ties to Cuba.

Rep. Dan Burton called for any records showing a link between the 16 and the Cuban government. The Indiana Republican also issued subpoenas to the Justice Department and the FBI.

Burton wrote a letter to CIA Director George J. Tenet asking for surveillance records and other documents related to any Cuba-Puerto Rico connection. He also sought a briefing on the agency’s knowledge of the pro-independence guerrilla groups the 16 belonged to. He gave the CIA until Nov. 18 to comply.

Burton’s Committee on Government Reform and Oversight has been holding hearings on Clinton’s Aug. 11 clemency offer to members of the FALN--the Spanish acronym for the Armed Forces for the National Liberation--and its Puerto Rican arm, the Macheteros, or “Cane Cutters.”

The FALN, which advocates Puerto Rican independence, carried out a wave of bombings in the United States in the late 1970s and early 1980s that left six dead and scores wounded. The Macheteros have been responsible mainly for attacks in Puerto Rico.

The Hartford, Conn., Courant reported in a recent series of articles that the two groups were created in consultation with Cuban intelligence agents and acted with Cuban support.

“Numerous court-authorized interceptions of conversations . . . have determined that the Cubans support and direct the Macheteros at a firsthand level,” the Courant quoted a 1980s FBI memo as saying.

The Courant said its FBI files came from an investigation of the Macheteros’ 1983 robbery of $7.2 million from a Wells Fargo armored truck in West Hartford, Conn.--at the time, the biggest U.S. robbery. The report said millions of dollars from that robbery were funneled to the communist island.

Puerto Rican nationalists have denied allegations of a Cuban link.

The CIA did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment. Spokesmen for the FBI and the Justice Department had no comment.

White House spokesman Jim Kennedy said, “As always we will work with the committee to respond to any fair and reasonable requests.”

Subpoenas issued by Burton’s committee unearthed an e-mail memo from a White House staffer circulated to colleagues surmising that Vice President Al Gore, seeking the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000, stood to benefit with Puerto Rican voters from the release of the prisoners.

The White House has denied that politics played any role in the clemency offer. Gore has said he had no prior knowledge of the clemency or the memo, written by Jeffery Farrow, co-chairman of the president’s interagency group on Puerto Rico.

A report released by Burton’s committee determined that political considerations were weighed in the decision.

“It confirms what we have been saying all along: that the White House sells out terrorists,” said Rep. Vito Fossella, the New York Republican who sponsored a congressional resolution opposed to the clemency.

Burton said he may hold hearings on the alleged Puerto Rico-Cuba connection, depending on what the subpoenas reveal.

Also Wednesday, the Senate approved a provision that would require the FBI to prepare a report assessing the threat posed by Clinton’s grant of clemency to the nationalists. The provision dealing with the Puerto Rican terrorist threat was tucked into a larger amendment, sponsored by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), stiffening penalties for the sale of powder cocaine. Hatch’s amendment was attached to bankruptcy legislation.

Hatch’s Senate Judiciary Committee has been holding hearings on the clemency.