Eric Holder pushed for controversial clemency

Clemency was supported at the time by a range of politically influential people who believed it would help bridge a divide with Puerto Ricans who had long resisted U.S. dominion of the island. The advocates included Carter, who had granted clemency to some FALN members himself; several Nobel Peace Prize laureates; some members of Congress; and Puerto Rican community leaders, many of whom met personally with Holder.

After one meeting with advocates of the FALN prisoners, Holder asked Adams to try to obtain statements of repentance from the inmates to include in the revised clemency report and recommendation being prepared for the White House, according to a 1999 Senate Judiciary Committee inquiry. Clinton later justified the commutations in part by citing his consultation with the Justice Department and the statements of repentance provided by the prisoners.

"The Justice Department is supposed to say what we think on the merits," said another Justice Department official opposed to clemency at the time, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. Instead, "we were pushed to tell [Clinton] what he wanted to hear, which was to grant it and to provide political cover."

When Clinton issued the commutations on Aug. 11, 1999, the House and the Senate passed resolutions condemning his decision. Some lawmakers charged that Clinton approved the commutations to bolster Latino support for First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was building her campaign for senator of New York, and Vice President Al Gore, who was gearing up to run for president.

Holder was called to testify on the case by the Senate Judiciary Committee but, invoking Clinton's claim of executive privilege, declined to say whether the Justice Department had changed its position on the commutations. Asked what happened after the 1996 report opposing any commutations, he told the senators: "There were subsequent communications with the White House in the months after that recommendation."

Love, told of the new details about Holder's role, now says: "It certainly sounds to me that he wanted to at least undercut if not overrule my earlier [1996] negative recommendation. It appears that he effectively gave the White House permission to make the grants." She added that she had not been aware of Holder's support for commutation before or after he fired her in 1997 and replaced her with Adams, his former senior aide in the deputy attorney general's office.