Hillary Hot-n-Heavy with Original Black Panthers & Worse

A reader challenges my assertion that Hillary Rodham Clinton (period pic below) was tight with the original Black Panther Party. My reference was to her working as a legal intern in Oakland, CA, on behalf of the Black Panthers. Willing to be corrected, I’ve looked further for reliable documentation knowing some is trustworthy, some is less so.

Accuracy in Media (AIM) confirms that Hillary did indeed work not only as an intern on the Black Panther case in Oakland, in 1971, but in addition helped organize the 1970 pro-Black Panther demonstrations at Yale after eight Black Panthers were put on trial for murder at New Haven.

Snopes.com, as noted by our reader, does not agree. Anyone is free to accept whatever sources they like; I’d be first in line to defend that privilege. And I would rely on Snopes for things of a non-political nature. But in terms of accurate scholarship — which often involves not only careful research but also refusing to be bought off — I’ll take AIM any day.

As the AIM story recounts, with the Black Panthers, Hillary went way beyond mere legal intern according to David Horowitz:

Former sixties radical David Horowitz says that both Hillary Rodham and Bill Lann Lee, who later became President Clinton’s head of the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, helped organize the pro-Panther demonstrations at Yale. Others sympathetic to Hillary contend that she was merely among a group of law students who monitored the trial on behalf of the ACLU, which was concerned that law enforcement was violating the civil liberties of members of the party. But Hillary says nothing in her book about even this role.

The Clintons are past masters at doctoring their own history. Anyone who lived as a thinking adult through the 90s is a witness to Clinton cover up after Clinton cover up. (They do a considerably better job of that than Obama; have you noticed? She’s right: experience matters.) They have eager accomplices in the media in all directions, so truth is not always first at bat.

This was 1971. During that explosive summer, Hillary was working for Robert Treuhaft. But, as she writes it in her own book, she was

a law clerk at the Oakland firm of Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein. ‘I spent most of my time working for Mal Burnstein researching, writing legal motions and briefs for a child custody case,’ she said. In fact, however, the public record shows that Clinton worked for Robert Treuhaft, a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and Harvard-trained lawyer for the party.

Citing public sources, Peter Flaherty’s book, The First Lady (Vital Issues Press, 1996), says that ‘Hillary was recommended to Treuhaft by some of her professors at Yale. She was looking for a ‘movement’ law firm to work at for the summer. As it turns out, Hillary would continue her association and support of the Black Panther cause while working as a law clerk for Treuhaft.’ Flaherty notes that Treuhaft told Herb Caen of the San Francisco Examiner, ‘That was the time we were representing the Black Panthers, and she worked on that case.’

Tell us again, who was Robert Treuhaft?

The Harvard Law Bulletin said about Treuhaft: ‘He belonged to and served as attorney to the Communist Party of the United States for many years and defended the civil rights of groups such as the Black Panther Party, Vietnam War draft resisters, and members of Berkeley’s free speech movement.

Wondering how tight Hillary was with Treuhaft? The New York Sun offers a trove of communiques between Hillary, Treuhaft, and Treuhaft’s wife, Jessica Mitford, who lobbied Gov. Bill Clinton, through Hillary, on the death penalty.

And Hillary was right in the middle of it. The AIM story is really just the tip of Hillary’s left-wing, radical iceberg. For an in-depth discussion, try Barbara Olson’s Hell to Pay: The Unfolding Story of Hillary Rodham Clinton. On Treuhaft, Olson quotes historian Stephen Schwartz who called Treuhaft a member of a

group of hard Communists who had been running the Communist Party of Northern California . . .

. . . Treuhaft is a man who dedicated his entire legal career to advancing the agenda of the Soviet Communist Party and the KGB.

It’s all there at Google Books. Page 56 is a good starting point. Lucky for Hillary, Al Qaeda ended Olson’s writing career on September 11, 2001. Hillary and Barack. What a pair! These are the people the Democrat Party offers as candidates for the U.S. Presidency.