FEMINIST LEADER ASSAILS HILLARY CLINTON (MORE, CLICK HERE)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ON AND AFTER JANUARY 15, 2008
MEDIA CONTACT: Zach Lorber ▪ Tel: 914-997-8105 ▪ Fax: 914-684-6554

FEMINIST LEADER ASSAILS HILLARY CLINTON, NATIONAL NOW-PAC & NOW-NYS FOR BLATANT SEXISM

CENTER FOR JUDICIAL ACCOUNTABILITY, INC. (CJA)

A national, nonpartisan, nonprofit citizens’ organization, working, pro bono, to protect the public interest in the integrity of our judicial selection and judicial discipline processes. Its mission is to ensure that only the most qualified trial lawyers become, and remain judges.

E-mail: judgewatch@aol.com Web: http://www.judgewatch.org

(White Plains, NY 1/15/08) In response to news releases from the National Organization for Women-Political Action Committee, and NOW-NYS, urging women to vote for Senator Hillary Clinton because she is a woman, Doris L. Sassower, Co-founder and President of Center for Judicial Accountability, Inc., a former President of the New York Women’s Bar Association, honored in 1981 with a Special Award from National Organization of Women-NYS “for outstanding achievements on behalf of women and children,” and profiled as one of the “Feminists Who Changed America, 1963-1975 in a recently launched book by the same name, says:

Such sexist appeal represents outdated, divisive, un-American thinking. It is because of my longtime passionate commitment to equal rights for women that I am urging NOW’s Political Action Committee to withdraw its endorsement of Senator Clinton for President and that women’s organizations and women en masse across the country NOT endorse or vote for Senator Clinton simply because she is a woman. More than that, much as it pains me, I specifically urge them NOT to vote for the Senator Clinton at all, based on her serious malfeasance as a U.S. Senator, a record that includes corruption of the federal judiciary and complicity in gross governmental abuse in violation of law.

A previous press release, hereinbelow, issued by CJA, details how, in May 2003, Senator Clinton’s staff counsel prevented CJA’s public interest advocate, Elena Ruth Sassower, from testifying at a public confirmation hearing in opposition to the Clinton-endorsed nomination of one of President Bush’s nominees, a Republican New York Court of Appeals judge, to a lifetime federal judgeship on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears appeals from all New York federal district courts. Her respectful 23-word request to testify against this Bush judicial nominee led to her unprecedented arrest and prosecution by our government for “Disruption of Congress.”

She was tried before another recent Bush nominee, whose confirmation had likewise been the subject of a pre-arranged “no opposition” confirmation hearing. After he refused to disqualify himself notwithstanding judicial ethics rules required him to do so when his “impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” she was wrongfully convicted, and this judge sentenced her to the maximum six months in prison, incarcerating her immediately in a DC Jail. There she spent the July 4th 2004 weekend in solitary confinement for five days. Through all that time and even after her release six months later, Senator Clinton kept silent and did not lift a finger to help her own constituent, Elena Ruth Sassower, albeit, on her return from jail two days before Christmas 2004, she was hailed as a hero in her White Plains, NY hometown, as “Defender of the Constitution” and named “2004 White Plains Person of the Year.”

This is not just a women’s rights issue; it is a human rights issue -- a cause I fought for all my professional life as a lawyer and as president of the New York Women’s Bar Association nearly 40 years ago. At this defining moment in our nation’s history, much as it pains me to say, despite her history-making effort to become the first woman president and women’s natural yearning to see a woman do so, Senator Clinton does not deserve that high honor. She betrayed not only her constituents, but her country, by knowing disregard of sacrosanct democratic values, when she condoned by silence, inaction, and indifference the violation of constitutional rights by her own staff counsel and thereafter by others on the federal payroll. Senator Clinton bears full responsibility for that outrage and should be held accountable for her disrespect for an open, honest, and participatory federal judicial nominating process and for her collusion with those in government willing to pervert the truth and the Rule of Law for their own political and personal gain.

Perhaps, a DC Jail cell would befit the Senator’s crimes better than the Oval Office of the White House.”

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CENTER FOR JUDICIAL ACCOUNTABILITY, INC. (CJA)

A national, nonpartisan, nonprofit citizens’ organization, working, pro bono, to protect the public interest in the integrity of our judicial selection and judicial discipline processes. Its mission is to ensure that only the most qualified trial lawyers become, and remain judges.

E-mail: judgewatch@aol.com Web: http://www.judgewatch.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ON AND AFTER DECEMBER 23, 2007
MEDIA CONTACT: Zach Lorber ▪ Tel: 914-997-8105 ▪ Fax: 914-684-6554


SENATOR CLINTON CONDEMNED BY CENTER FOR JUDICIAL ACCOUNTABILITY, INC.

For Constitutional Violations In Not Protecting Her Constituent’s First Amendment Rights
When Her Own Staff Counsel Acted To Prevent Opposition Testimony At Judicial Confirmation Public Hearing


White Plains, NY (12/23/07) On May 22, 2003, White Plains, NY resident, Elena Ruth Sassower, Co-Founder and Coordinator of the Center for Judicial Accountability, Inc, rose, as the closing gavel came down at a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Public Confirmation Hearing Richard Wesley nomination to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and respectfully asked: “Mr. Chairman, there’s citizen opposition to Judge Wesley based on his documented corruption as a New York Court of Appeals judge. May I testify?” Without answering the question, then Chairman Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) had Ms. Sassower forcibly removed from the hearing room by D.C. Capitol Police. She was handcuffed behind her back, arrested, incarcerated for 21 hours, and thereafter prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for “Disruption of Congress.”

Prior to the hearing, Ms. Sassower visited Senator Clinton’s Washington, D.C. office and requested her to withdraw her announced support for the Wesley nomination. Ms. Sassower supplied documentation substantiating his corruption of the NY Court of Appeals. Instead of probing the very serious documented charges of her constituent, a longtime judicial reform activist, Senator Clinton’s Staff Counsel called the Secret Service. In turn, D.C. Capitol Police telephoned Ms. Sassower threatening that if she came to the Public Hearing and requested to testify in opposition to the Wesley nomination, she would be arrested.

On June 28, 2004, despite recommendations of the Probation Department and the U.S. Attorney’s Office that there be NO jail-time, D.C. Superior Court Judge Brian F. Holeman sentenced her to the maximum six months in jail, with a maximum fine, without bail, and denied her repeated requests for a stay pending appeal, after she declined his long list of probation conditions. These included a direction that she “stay away from and inside the United States Capitol Complex,” have no contact with Senator Clinton and her staff, and “write and send letters of apology to Senator Clinton,” among others, “…which state…your remorse for any inconvenience caused.” When Ms. Sassower said she would not write such letters because she would “not lie,” Judge Holeman ordered her taken straight to the D.C. Jail, with no opportunity to go home and settle her affairs. There she spent the July 4th weekend in solitary confinement and was not released from prison until December 23, 2004.

By contrast, at a May 7, 2003 U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, during testimony of then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, a group of eight protestors, loudly and repeatedly shouted “Fire Rumsfeld for war crimes!” and unfurled a banner that read “Fire Rumsfeld” before the protestors were escorted from the building. None of the eight were arrested or charged with “Disruption of Congress.” Ms. Sassower’s arrest on May 22, 2003, a mere 15 days later, was an unprecedented violation of her First Amendment and other constitutionally guaranteed rights.

In all that time, before, during, and since Ms. Sassower’s arrest, imprisonment, and release after her six-month incarceration, Senator Clinton did not lift one finger to help her constituent, whose arrest and imprisonment her own office had instigated – closing her eyes and ears to the appeals of other constituents and outraged members of the public from all over the country and abroad that she initiate remedial action. Ironically, following Ms. Sassower’s release from jail, she was voted 2004 “White Plains Person of the Year/Defender of the Constitution” in her hometown. Still no word on the subject from now Candidate Clinton. Yet, husband Bill boasts she is a “world-class genius”… with an unbroken record of making decisions that have had a positive change in other people's lives.”
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