Resigned FISA Judge a Committed Clintonista

The press is breathlessly reporting that U.S. District Judge James Robertson has resigned from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court - "apparently" in a fit of conscience over news that President Bush was using the National Security Agency to monitor the telephone conversations of terrorists.

If the reports are correct, Judge Robertson's conscience has evolved considerably since the days when he was dismissing one criminal case after another against cronies of Bill Clinton - the man who appointed him to the bench in 1994.

Old Arkansas media hand Paul Greenberg has long had Robertson's number. In a 1999 column for Jewish World Review, Greenberg described the honorable judge as "one of the more prejudiced Clintonoids on the bench."

As Accuracy in Media noted in 2000, Judge Roberston's conscience wasn't particularly troubled by the crimes committed by one-time Clinton Deputy Attorney General Webb Hubbell.

In two cases involving Hubbell, AIM reported, "Judge James Robertson threw out a tax charge and another for lying to federal investigators. Appellate courts overruled in both cases, and Hubbell then plead guilty to felonies in each case."
Judge Robertson's conscience also seemed to go AWOL when it came to the case of Archie Schaffer, an executive with Tyson Chicken - the company that had showered Mr. Clinton with campaign contributions and helped steer Mrs. Clinton to her commodities market killing.

Critics said Judge Robertson was merely returning the favor on behalf of the man who appointed him, when - as CNN reported in 1998, he "threw out the jury conviction of Tyson Foods executive Archie Schaffer for providing gifts to former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy."

Robertson had "granted a motion by Schaffer to overturn the verdict which found him guilty of giving Espy tickets to President Bill Clinton's first inaugural dinner and gifts at a birthday party for the firm's chief executive, Don Tyson."

In the context of his past performance on the bench, Judge Robertson's media fans will surely understand why some of us aren't buying their claims that he stormed off the FISA court in a fit of outrage over perceived law breaking.