FBI leader thanked Janklow in Peltier matter

Last week we told the story about how former Gov. Bill Janklow made a secret op to visit Bill Clinton at the White House. Janklow was there to lobby Clinton to not release Leonard Peltier, the American Indian Movement activist who was accused in 1977 of murdering two FBI agents.

Janklow used a close personal relationship with Clinton -- and his own experiences with the incident -- to persuade Clinton that Peltier should not be released. Still, when he left Washington on Dec. 7, 2000, Janklow wasn't sure what Clinton would do.

The FBI had also been lobbying Clinton not to release Peltier. Two days before Janklow's visit, FBI Director Louis Freeh had written Clinton asking him to turn down Peltier's clemency petition.

"There is no dissent within our agency," Freeh wrote, "only the widespread belief that the criminal justice system of the United States rightly convicted and repeatedly affirmed that Peltier was nothing other than a cold-blooded killer."

The following week after Janklow's visit, hundreds of current and former FBI agents marched on Washington, trying to convince Clinton not to do it.

But it's worth remembering that Clinton and the FBI weren't on the best of terms when Clinton was leaving office. This from USA Today:

After years of clashes between the FBI and the White House, bureau officials privately fear that the outgoing president might take this opportunity to thumb his nose at FBI Director Louis Freeh and the bureau by pardoning the activist.

Peltier, 56, is serving two consecutive life sentences for the murders of special agents Ronald Williams, 27, and Jack Coler, 28, in a shootout on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation on June 26, 1975. . . 

In a Pacifica Radio network interview last month, Clinton said that Peltier's request deserves a fair hearing and that he would decide the issue before leaving office.

Complicating the matter are hard feelings between the White House and the FBI left over from a string of disputes, including Freeh's support for continued investigation of campaign fundraising practices by Clinton and Vice President Gore.

Clinton ultimately left office without granting Peltier clemency, a fact that left some of his supporters bitter. In 2007, media mogul David Geffen explained his antipathy about Hillary Clinton's presidential bid to New York Times columnist David Geffen. Geffen, who raised millions for Bill Clinton, had personally lobbied the president to release Peltier. Geffen expressed his frustration that Clinton had pardoned friends, but had not release Peltier.

"Yet another time when the Clintons were unwilling to stand for the things that they genuinely believe in," he said.

"Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it's troubling."

Ultimately, the FBI prevailed. Marshall Damgaard, a former Janklow aide and the chief archivist for Janklow's papers at the University of South Dakota, found this gem following last week's story: A letter from Freeh to Janklow, written just after Clinton left office, thanking Janklow for intervening.