Birds of a Feather
Charles Johnson
Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 7:41 am PST • Views: 236
Anti-American “progressive” billionaire George Soros donated money to the defense of radical terrorist-aiding lawyer Lynne Stewart: Soros Funded Stewart Defense. (Hat tip: LawHawk.)
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.” …
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.
Frank says: