George Soros Funded Stewart's Defense

Billionaire financier George Soros, whose opposition to President Bush's conduct of the war on terror caused him to pour millions of dollars into the effort to defeat the president, made a substantial donation to the defense fund for radical lawyer Lynne Stewart, who last week was found guilty of giving aid to Islamic terrorists.

According to records filed with the Internal Revenue Service, Soros's foundation, the Open Society Institute, or OSI, gave $20,000 in September 2002 to the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee.

In filings with the IRS, foundation officials wrote that the purpose of the contribution was "to conduct a public education campaign around the broad civil rights implications of Lynne Stewart's indictment."

Answering questions by e-mail, Amy Weil, a spokeswoman for the Open Society Institute, said the foundation contributed to Stewart's fund because "it appeared to us at that time that there was a right-to-counsel issue worthy of our support."

Stewart's legal troubles stemmed from her defense of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, sometimes known as the Blind Sheikh. Rahman led an Egyptian-based terrorist organization known as the Islamic Group.

In 1996, Rahman was sentenced to life in prison for his involvement in the first attack on the World Trade Center, in 1993, and for his part in failed plots to blow up the United Nations building and the Lincoln and Holland tunnels in New York.

After his conviction, Rahman's followers threatened a series of terrorist attacks against American targets unless he were released. In 1998, the U.S. government reportedly had intelligence that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were plotting to hijack aircraft in the United States in order to demand freedom for Rahman and other convicted terrorists.

Because of those threats, the government issued a special order that the imprisoned Rahman not be allowed to communicate with his followers, to prevent his inciting them to further violence. He was allowed to communicate only with his wife and with his lawyers, who were not allowed to relay his wishes to his followers.

Stewart promised to abide by those rules. But at her trial, the government produced evidence showing that Stewart and two codefendants on a number of occasions used their privileged access to Rahman to help transmit Rahman's orders to his followers in the Islamic Group.

On February 10, Stewart was convicted on two counts of providing material aid to terrorists and three counts of lying to federal investigators. She is planning to appeal.

Before the verdict, officials of the Open Society Institute characterized Stewart's work as that of a "human rights defender." In an October 2004 speech in Norway, Gara LaMarche, head of OSI programs in the United States, said, "The right to counsel, and its erosion in the United States since September 11, strikes with particular force at the role of human rights defenders. One troubling trend has been the arrest and prosecution of lawyers and other defenders as 'material witnesses' to terrorism. These include Lynne Stewart, attorney for Sheik Abdel Rahman..."

At one point, Stewart's Defense Committee website, lynnestewart.org, bore the notation, "This website is made possible by the generous support of the Open Society Institute."

Amy Weil told National Review that while the Institute initially underwrote Stewart's defense, the foundation's commitment was not open-ended. "More recently, OSI was asked for additional funding and we turned down that request," she said.

Sadly, I could not find a YouTube clip of the "Let the Sun Shine In" sequence from Hair, but here's the cast of The 40-Year-Old Virgin doing Aquarius in a weird musical coda to a non-musical, à la My Life as a Dog and Nasty Girl and other Euroflicks.

Funny - I don't hear any of the usual suspects complaining about the inequity of a white woman only getting 28 months in the pokey while the brown people get 24 years.

Not yet, anyway.

"The Sheikh Whisperer" - LOL! Good one ev.

I'll bet she'll get a cushy prison like that "other" Stewart woman. If it was up to me, she'd do her time at Angola or Parchman. Or Gitmo.

I should be happy that the treasonous bitch is getting any jail time at all.

Great point, Lyana.

I'm with you, lady red. My choice is Angola.

Lyana- great point. But that's the Left for you, racist to the core in their own special way. Bleh.

Not Gitmo! Hubby has friends there, and his unit is one of the deployment suppliers, and well, his number will be coming up sometime soon. While he could handle the foreign terrorists, a domestic traitor would bring his ugly out.

May a shank find this hag's rib cage sooner than later.

Even after all these years, the treasonous hippies are still getting a free ride, and still being pampered by "Mom and Dad" (i.e., leftwing judges, George Soros, et al) who will bail them out of whatever trouble they get in.

And the treasonous hippies, and their backers, such as Soros, really want America to be destroyed, and are working towards that end. And, after this miscarriage of justice, I'm afraid they're going to win.

I don't know that they necessarily want to destroy America. I think they just don't realize that freedom comes at a price, and that there are people who do want to destroy us because they do not believe in freedom.

When the realization finally hits, guess who the lefty types are going to call to protect them.

#13 RadioMattM

You know, I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't really matter why these people oppose their own country so much: maybe it's deliberate; maybe they just don't realize freedom does come with a price or they're just simply lashing out, cuz they're mad at Mom and Dad. Ultimately, it doesn't matter.

The fact is, whatever their reasons, they are working against the country, and they will be used as useful tools by the likes of Soros, and the terrorists. It's possible that, at the end, these lefty types will realize they've been duped, and will cry for help---but I wonder if there'll be anybody to hear them at that point? It really is possible to go too far, to pass a point of no return, to get into a mess nobody can help you get out of.

Once they destroy the society they hate, who'se going to come to their rescue? Certainly not their new masters, who'll despise them, as see them only as tools which are no longer needed. The rest of us---assuming we're still around---may be too busy trying to save ourselves. And, if we do save them, what then? Are they just going to turn around and find a new tyrant---the Chicoms, the North Koreans, alien invaders---to try selling us out to?

(Okay, I admit---I'm grumpy lately. Don't mind me, please!)

Had a good laugh reading this, Clevarest Evariste

Good :-)