Bill Clinton Commuted Sentences Of Domestic Terrorists Who Bombed US Capitol In 1983

A massive skeleton just crawled from former President Bill Clinton’s closet and bit him on the arse. It seems Clinton commuted the sentence of some domestic terrorists who bombed the US Capitol in 1983. 

On November 7, 1983, at 11 pm, a bomb ripped through the second floor of the U.S. Capitol’s Senate wing. In May 1988 FBI agents arrested seven members of the “Resistance Conspiracy” who set off the bomb:

Marilyn Jean Buck, Linda Sue Evans, Susan Rosenberg, Timothy Blunk, Alan Berkman, Laura Whitehorn and Elizabeth Ann Duke. Bill Clinton commuted the sentences of Evans and Rosenberg on his last day in office, January 20, 2001.

According to Politico:

The force of the device, hidden under a bench outside the Senate chamber, blew the hinges off the door to the office of Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), the minority leader.

It also damaged five paintings, particularly a stately portrait of Massachusetts Sen. Daniel Webster. (The blast tore away Webster’s face and left it scattered across the floor tiles in one-inch canvas shards.

enate officials recovered the fragments from debris-filled trash bins. Over the coming months, a conservator painstakingly restored the painting to a credible, if somewhat diminished, version of the original.)

The blast also punched a hole in a partition that sent a shower of pulverized brick, plaster and glass into the Republican cloakroom behind the chamber.

Although the explosion caused no structural damage to the Capitol, it shattered mirrors, chandeliers and furniture. Officials placed the damage at $250,000.

After a five-year investigation, in May 1988 FBI agents arrested seven members of the “Resistance Conspiracy”: Marilyn Jean Buck, Linda Sue Evans, Susan Rosenberg, Timothy Blunk, Alan Berkman, Laura Whitehorn and Elizabeth Ann Duke. They were charged with executing the Capitol bombing as well as triggering similar blasts at Fort McNair and the Washington Navy Yard.

On Dec. 7, 1990, U.S. District Court Judge Harold H. Greene sentenced Whitehorn and Evans to lengthy prison terms for conspiracy and malicious destruction of government property.

Greene dropped charges against three co-defendants because they were already serving extended prison sentences for related terrorist crimes.

Whitehorn was sentenced to 20 years; Evans, to five years, to be served concurrently with 35 years for having illegally bought guns. On Aug. 6, 1999, Whitehorn was released on parole after serving just over 14 years. On Jan. 20, 2001, his final day in office, President Bill Clinton commuted Evans’ sentence to time served.

According to Smithsonian Mag:

Just before 11 p.m. on November 7, 1983, they called the U.S. Capitol switchboard and warned them to evacuate the building.

Ten minutes later, a bomb detonated in the building’s north wing, harming no one but blasting a 15-foot gash in a wall and causing $1 million in damage.

Over the course of a 20-month span in 1983 and 1984, M19 also bombed an FBI office, the Israel Aircraft Industries building, and the South African consulate in New York, D.C.’s Fort McNair and Navy Yard (which they hit twice.)

The attacks tended to follow a similar pattern: a warning call to clear the area, an explosion, a pre-recorded message to media railing against U.S. imperialism or the war machine under various organizational aliases (never using the name M19).

Who were these domestic terrorists sought by the FBI? Rosenau writes of “self-described ‘corn-fed girl’” Linda Sue Evans, whose politics took a radical turn while attending Michigan State University in the midst of the Vietnam War. Many M19 members’ stories echo Linda’s—college activism (at schools including Cornell, Berkeley, Radcliffe and Hampshire College) shaped their far-left worldviews, and for some, their status as out lesbians put them at odds with a heteronormative, patriarchal society.

M19 membership typically followed involvement with other far-left groups. New Yorker Susan Rosenberg, one of M19’s earliest members, traveled to Cuba with the Castro-friendly Venceremos Brigade, and Italian-born Silvia Baraldini was part of a front for the militant Weather Underground. Along with several others, Alan Berkman, a Columbia-trained doctor who was one of the few men in the M19 inner circle, was involved with the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee.

According to Wikipedia:

On December 6, 1990, federal judge Harold H. Greene sentenced Laura Whitehorn and Linda Evans to lengthy prison terms for conspiracy and malicious destruction of government property.

The court dropped charges against three co-defendants, two of whom (including Susan Rosenberg) were serving extended prison sentences for related crimes.[10] Whitehorn was sentenced to 20 years; Evans, to 5 years, concurrent with 35 years for illegally buying guns.[11] On January 20, 2001, the day he left office, President Bill Clinton commuted Evans’s and Rosenberg’s sentences.[12]

I had to check this because it seemed too wild– but it’s TRUE. A Left-wing terrorist who bombed the Capitol Building was pardoned by Clinton and now fundraises for BLM. pic.twitter.com/5KIF4Z50SB

— Joel Berry (@JoelWBerry) January 13, 2021