If past is prologue, and it usually is, then a Hillary Clinton presidency may be engulfed and disabled by scandal.
Make that plural --scandals. As a consequence, she
is likely to accomplish little on behalf of the American people. In
other words, her presidency could be dead on arrival the moment she is
sworn into office.
How do we know this? First, the FBI announced Friday
that it is reopening its criminal investigation of Clinton’s personal
email server.
FBI Director James Comey did not give details except
to convey that, in connection with an unrelated case, new evidence had
been uncovered. The Director said his agency would “review these new
emails to determine whether they contain classified information.”
This is a stunning new development. It will surely do
enormous damage to Clinton’s chances of winning the office she has long
coveted. But if she is elected notwithstanding, the FBI investigation
itself will hobble her presidency from the outset. The cloud of
distrust and scandal that already hovers over Clinton could grow
exponentially.
Second, the powerful chairman of a congressional
committee and many others on Capitol Hill are vowing to pursue their
investigations of wrongdoing by Clinton. These are the very people with
whom the new president must work to accomplish anything meaningful on
behalf of Americans who are yearning for something other than gridlock
in Washington.
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But the WikiLeaks emails are like gasoline on a fire.
Clinton doesn’t deny their authenticity. And every day begets yet
another damning revelation of misdeeds and concomitant cover-ups. Even
Clinton’s own aides and allies express bewilderment over her chronic
mistakes. Some are appalled.
Why would Clinton behave with such reckless abandon
when so much is at stake? Because Clinton seems addicted to misbehavior,
yet never recognizing it as such.
As pointed out in my last column, she routinely
breaches the bounds of propriety. She steps right up to the line of
illegality and dangles her foot over it, unconscious or uncaring of the
repercussions.
If her activities are not illegal, they are surely
unethical. By her own actions, she has transformed herself into the
poster child for moral turpitude. And there is no reason to believe she
will suddenly stop upon assuming the nation’s highest office, should
she win the election. Indeed, sitting in the Oval Office may only serve
to embolden her to push the envelope of opprobrium even further.
Let’s review. She stands accused of deliberately
evading public disclosure laws by hiding emails on a private server,
then lying about it. She is suspected of using her position as
Secretary of State to confer benefits in exchange for money from foreign
donors (notoriously called “pay-for-play”). It looks like she and her
husband leveraged their charity foundation to enriched themselves
personally to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.
And those are just her recent shenanigans. Illegality? Graft? Corruption? Malfeasance? Pick your favorite noun.
Investigations Into What?
Clinton did not tell the truth in several of her
statements, according to FBI Director James Comey. The Chairman of the
House Oversight Committee, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, has sent an official
referral to the FBI to open an investigation into whether Clinton
perjured herself in her sworn testimony before Congress when she
insisted she did not send or receive anything marked classified via her
private emails. That’s just one of her alleged deceptions.
Under Title 18, Section 162 of the federal code, a
perjury conviction carries up to 5 years in prison. So the matter of
lying to Congress is not just a pesky issue that will vanish after
November 8th. Rep. Chaffetz is determined to pursue it and so are many
of his colleagues. But that’s not all.
Chaffetz is now curious about whether the FBI’s decision
not
to recommend criminal prosecution of Clinton for mishandling classified
documents was swayed by the $ 675,000 given by a close Clinton ally to
the wife of the FBI official overseeing the investigation. It smacks
of illegal influence-peddling.
And what about the claim of an FBI agent that Clinton
aide Patrick Kennedy tried to declassify and bury one of Clinton’s
legally toxic documents… in a quid pro quo favor for the Bureau? That
smacks of obstruction of justice. Again, Chaffetz wants to know. And
so does Speaker of the House Paul Ryan who is promising to dig into the
suspicious offer.
There is also the matter of whether Clinton’s
wholesale deletion of thousands of emails after Congress had issued a
subpoena for them constitutes “destruction of evidence” which is also a
crime. How did that happen? The people who seem to know are invoking
the 5th Amendment against self-incrimination. More immunity deals might
loosen lips.
Numerous reports indicate that wealthy donors to
Clinton’s foundation secured special access to her as Secretary of
State. This, too, may be part of the upcoming congressional
investigation. It is against the law for a public official to use his
or her position to confer benefits in exchange for money. Sen. John
Cornyn, the second-ranking GOP senator, is demanding answers.
The Big-Bucks Gravy Train
There are multiple reports that the FBI has opened a
criminal investigation into potential corruption within the Clinton
Foundation. Newly leaked emails show that charity official Doug Band,
while raising money for the foundation, also steered millions of dollars
to Bill Clinton. Quite the cozy relationship. However, if the
foundation was not operating strictly as a charity under the laws
governing non-profit groups, it could be deemed an illegal enterprise.
In other words, criminal fraud.
How much money did the former president pocket? One Band email is especially revealing :
“President
Clinton’s business arrangements have yielded more than $ 30 million for
him personally, with $ 66 million to be paid out over the next nine
years should he chose to continue with the current engagements.”
The boat-loads of cash came from Clinton foundation
donors --the same donors who had business before Clinton's State
Department and some of whom appear to have received benefits therefrom.
For example, Hillary helped UBS avoid the IRS, and then Bill got paid $
1.5 million dollars. Thereafter, their foundation received a ten-fold
increase in donations. If that was a reward for Hillary’s machinations,
then it constitutes bribery under federal law, 18 U.S.C., section 201.
When asked recently to explain what appears to be
blatant double dealing and the stench of pay-for-play, the Clinton
campaign did not really deny it, but simply said the charity did
wonderful work. It certainly did --it did wonderful work enriching the
Clintons’ bank account.
If you ever wondered how Bill and Hillary got so
outrageously rich, Band's emails make explicit the compelling and
incriminating evidence the Clintons used their foundation for personal
profit. It's a prosecutor's dream. A "smoking gun" document if ever
there was one.
While Bill has stayed mum on the subject, Chelsea
Clinton expressed some dismay that Band was using the foundation to
“hustle business”, but I doubt she was objecting to her future
inheritance. After all, why derail the “gravy train” when it’s running
on a slick track at high speed?
More than 50 House Republicans have urged the
Department of Justice to appoint a “special prosecutor” to investigate
the Clinton Foundation. Yeah, fat chance. The objectivity of Attorney
General Loretta Lynch was shattered when she hung out with Bill on her
plane for a half hour just before she decided there would be no criminal
prosecution of Hillary. And if she becomes president, there is zero
Clinton’s newly appointed A-G will decide to investigate the new boss.
No one wants to become the next Archibald Cox. (See “Saturday Night
Massacre”.)
Watergate Redux
Speaking of Watergate, after Richard Nixon fired Cox,
Congress began to toy with the notion of creating a special prosecutor
who was
not controlled by the executive branch which he or she
was investigating. You know, conflict of interest and all that. Thus,
the Independent Counsel Act was enacted. This is a nifty legal device
which could be employed to investigate Clinton by circumventing DOJ.
Yes, the law has expired. But it could be
reauthorized immediately by Congress since the full language of the
statute still exists. It was resurrected once before, so it can be done
again. Coincidentally, the most famous Independent Counsel, Kenneth
Starr, composed a report that led to the impeachment of… yes… Bill
Clinton. (See “blue dress”.)
Of course, the President must sign the bill into
law. But would Obama now, or Clinton later, dare to veto legislation
meant to curb the abuses of power? How could that be justified? Think
of the political backlash.
Much can be learned from Nixon’s demise. He aided
and abetted crimes, lied and obstructed justice. In the end, it caught
up with him and he resigned in disgrace. The only American president to
do so.
At the time, a young Hillary Rodham was serving as a
junior member of the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment inquiry
staff which was investigating Nixon and Watergate. Given all that has
happened and all she has done, one wonders if she learned anything from
that experience.
She might have learned how power corrupts. And yet, here we are.
She might also have learned that scandals tend to
disable presidents. Since it is likely that Clinton has been thinking
(or dreaming) of becoming president for a very long time, why would she
engage in such risky and aberrant behavior? It is truly confounding.
Hillary Clinton may well end up assuming the
presidency. But winning an election is different than the hard business
of governing. That’s what Nixon learned after his landslide victory
over Sen. George McGovern in 1972.
Nixon viewed his re-election as an overwhelming
mandate. Yet, the scandal of Watergate soon engulfed him. It so
consumed his presidency and the public’s perception of him, that a
weakened Nixon lost the ability to work with Congress. Very little
legislation was accomplished for the benefit of the American people.
Nixon squandered the public’s trust and good will…by
his own inexplicable actions. Maybe it was the intoxicating influence
of high office. Or maybe it was simply his own inner demons.
But Americans have reason to worry that a President Hillary Clinton could suffer a similar and tragic fate.