Hillary Caves on Ground Zero Allegations

U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton has dropped her plan to block the nomination of former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency, saying she will no longer hold the nomination hostage to her demands that the White House release the names of individuals she accused of engaging in a massive Ground Zero air quality cover-up.

"We have reached agreement with the White House for additional testing to verify that residences [at Ground Zero] that have been cleaned have not been recontaminated," Mrs. Clinton told reporters yesterday, saying she'll allow the Leavitt nomination to go to the Senate floor for a vote on that basis.

As reported in the Washington Times, the agreement is a far cry from what the former first lady was demanding just weeks ago, based on a report by a Clinton-Gore appointee at the EPA who alleged the White House tampered with air quality warnings in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

On Sept. 11 of this year, Sen. Clinton told NBC's "Today" show: "I'm going to keep pushing this. As you know, I've put a hold on the nominee for the new EPA administration until I do get answers and actions."

A few weeks before that, the former first lady complained: "This is a very big issue. It not only has to do with the health and safety of the people I represent. It has to do with the credibility and trust of this entire government."

The former first lady went so far as to accuse the Bush White House of a criminal cover-up, insisting in overwrought tones:

"I know a bit about how the White House works. Somebody picked up the phone, somebody got on a computer, somebody sent an e-mail, somebody called for a meeting, somebody in that White House probably under instructions from somebody further up the chain told the EPA, 'Don't tell the people of New York the truth. And I want to know who that is!"

"[The EPA] knew and they didn't tell us the truth and the White House told them not to tell us the truth," Clinton fumed. "Maybe in the immediate aftermath, the first couple of days, nobody could know [about the allegedly dangerous air]. But a week later, two weeks later, two months later, six months later - give me a break."

Clinton agreed to withdraw her opposition because she had been outmaneuvered, the Times said. "The Senate had been prepared yesterday to vote for cloture, a parliamentary procedure to get around blocks and force a final up-or-down vote on a nomination or bill. Republicans were confident of winning the vote. Faced with that prospect, Democrats gave in."

But Mrs. Clinton's cave-in likely got an extra push from former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who had publicly challenged her claims that the Bush White House deliberately downplayed air quality risks at Ground Zero.

During the same Sept. 11 broadcast Giuliani told "Today" that air quality information coming from the administration was "not inconsistent with all the other reports that we had."

"There's no question that there were problems right in the pit and that people had to wear their masks there - and should have," he explained. "And obviously not everybody did. And when they were caught they were told to do it."

But the man dubbed "America's Mayor" after the 9/11 attacks contended, "As you got beyond it, the reports that we got from EPA, which are now being reviewed, were consistent with all the reports that we got from the state and the city environmental agencies - and the private ones that have been commissioned by the unions and the contractors."

"I'm talking about the other seven or eight [reports] that don't say [what Sen. Clinton alleges] and are pretty much consistent."

In what sounded like a direct rebuke to the former first lady, Giuliani told "Today," "Before this becomes a major political issue, which in a way it kind of has, somebody should look at the substance of it - because those reports were pretty darned consistent, as I recall it, with maybe seven other agencies unconnected to the EPA."

Editor's note:
"CATASTROPHE" Reveals Bill Clinton’s Role in 9/11 - Click Here to find out more

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