Clinton - may be more corrupt than she appears

As the US elections approaches its Zama, its Waterloo, its Dunkirk moment, many heated debates still rage about the prospective pros and cons of the two candidates. The deficiencies of Trump really need no stressing because they are plain for all to see. He is basically like Biff from Back to the Future – egotistic, bullying, uncultured, thin-skinned and not very very very bright. The mass media which, I think even most Clinton pundits would notice is biased towards her, must secretly be thanking him for arming them with seemingly endless ammunition on a daily basis from which they earn their bread.

But the same media has been chaperoning their ideologically-backed candidate, Hillary Clinton, not only through this election, but for decades prior. I outlined some of this behaviour in a previous post. Now, it is not that I think you cannot make an informed risk assessment and come to a conclusion for voting for Clinton; it is the fact that the noble vocation of journalism, a safeguard against political corruption and therefore a fundamental pillar that ensures democracy and liberty, is being traduced that I resent the most.

This is without CNN, MSNBC, The Guardian, Huffington Post, ESPN etc which are all pro-Clinton; nor Breitbart, which is heavily Trump-leaning

Like I said, between the two most unpopular presidential candidates in US election history, you can make a risk assessment that would favour Clinton. But the bias in the media would not allow this assessment to be made in an informed or bipartisan way for most people whose information comes solely from the mainstream press. What I have found fascinating with the Clintons and their relationship with the media is how they have, through triangulation, lowered the standard for what is acceptable behaviour both politically as well as what is simply decent. Two quick examples – the women who have come out recently accusing Trump of sexual assault are treated as heroes whereas the women who came out accusing Bill Clinton of rape and sexual assault and Mrs Clinton of threats were and still are treated as floozies and attention seekers. Trump’s daughter Ivanka was asked the question “is your father a sexist?” by a straight-faced CNN journalist in an interview (this is before the leaked video of Trump's lewd conversation and subsequent accusations). When did any journalist at any time ask Chelsea the question “is your father a rapist?” or "did your mother threaten your father's alleged rape victims?"

One should vote without illusions, especially when the lies spread by the media about Clinton is so transparent. This election is less about policies than it is about culture. The only reason why Trump, unqualified as he is, is where he is, is that he was bold enough (or egotistical enough) to draw attention to some obvious but tabooed subjects that resonated with a lot of people, which were bubbling under the surface, forced to be so by the fabricated 'liberal' consensus manufactured by politicians and the media. Such as it is, one needs to look beneath the veneer of spin and see the gears and wheels of how their candidate operates. 

When looking back at the scandal-strewn alley of the Clinton history, one feels like a mosquito at a nudist colony – where do you start? But to stick to the email scandal, which is up there with the worst scandals in US political history I can think of, including Watergate and the Iran-Contra scandal. It is much beyond the normality of ‘dirty politics’. A quick precis:

1) Clinton said she made the private server for convenience, but the most convenient thing would be to take what the State Department already set up for you on pre-made devices using .gov email.

2) The only reason why you would go to the trouble to have a separate private server set up to conduct state business is so you can be unaccountable because all state-related communiques are required by federal law to be archived.

3) She lied repeatedly under oath during the FBI investigation including saying she used the private email for personal purposes but they have found many classified emails. She lied about the number of devices she had and she deleted 33,000 emails which were subpoenaed, had her email history purged with bleachbit by a specialist and multiple devices smashed with hammers to make the data unrecoverable - that is blatantly tempering with evidence and obstruction of justice, which is clearly criminal.

4) Having spent 30+ years in DC as first lady, as a senator and as Secretary of State, she claims not to recognise the 'C' marking on documents which means that its classification is 'Confidential', ranking just beneath 'Secret' in the classification system. Either she is mendacious or she is very ignorant.

5) It was discovered that Obama had emailed her on the private email address. Obama had said when the story first broke regarding Clinton’s private server that he found out about the private server via the media like everyone else, meaning he lied and that he knew and abetted her illegal behaviour.

6) She accuse Trump of somehow colluding with Russian hackers (which there is no tangible evidence as of now, though it’s not an impossibility) yet she is the one that made classified state material very accessible to anyone who wanted to look at them by using a server less secure than Gmail - again so that no communique is backed up elsewhere. Even your average person knows that the US government is under constant cyber-attack from all over the world including foreign governments, notably China. For her to have knowingly exposed sensitive information as the secretary of state is, to put it as objectively as possible, criminally negligent.

7) Regarding the Russians, Hillary facilitated the Russian purchase of 20% of US uranium assets, interestingly coinciding with over $100 million being donated by stakeholders to the Clinton Foundation and Bill getting a lucrative $500,000 speaker fee from a Moscow-based investment bank. No journalist as far as I can find has asked her about this in the campaign. Needless to say, the quid pro quo or pay for play scandal involving the Clinton Foundation is a whole other can of worms. 

8) Just yesterday (October 28^th), days before the vote, the FBI’s James Comey has announced re-opening of theinvestigation into Clinton’s emails. It has since broke that this is not due to new Wikileaks emails. If you cast your mind back to Anthony Weiner, the ex-husband of Clinton’s top aide and confidant Huma Abedin and a former member of the House of Representatives as well as a serial sexting addict, you might recall his recent transgression where he sent unsolicited and lewd pictures of himself to multiple women, including a 15-year old girl, which ended his marriage. What happened was that the FBI inadvertently, when investigating his electronic devices, found hundreds of Clinton’s emails on a laptop. 

The irony is that in August, when Weiner’s latest round of sexting was exposed, Trump made a statement saying “I only worry in that Hillary Clinton was careless and negligent in allowing Weiner to have such close proximity to highly classified information”. He theorised that Weiner, an unstable guy with such an open flank to black mail, may have access, through his wife Huma Abedin, to classified information floating around on an unsecured server. He more or less hit it on the head, which someone swinging so wildly is apt to do from time to time. 

It is worth noting that James Comey has been under intense pressure for his obvious white-knighting of Clinton and basically giving her a free pass for her multiple infringements. Faced with new evidence, he is caught between a rock and a hard place. If he waited till after the election, he would be accused of aiding Clinton. If he releases it, the Clinton base would accuse him of undermining her. This move is likely partly to regain some credibility to show that he wasn’t intentionally helping her during the election. Which he is, because 11 days is not nearly enough to have a thorough investigation. But it also suggest that the new evidence is fairly serious to deserve re-opening of this investigation and forcing Comey's hand. If Clinton wins, she might become the only newly anointed president to have been, for a separate investigations, finger printed and be under active FBI investigation.

Furthermore, Clinton gave a speech in response to the news where she called for the the FBI to 'immediately' give details on the new emails that they have recovered. This is quite rich. She knows full well that according to DOJ regulations classified information under investigation cannot be made public. Not that she herself cares very much about such regulations. Obviously she wished to give the impression of confidence and a clear conscience in the face of the public about to cast their ballots in a tightening race. Well, she herself can clear this if she wishes because they were her emails. This whole episode wouldn't be necessary if she hadn't broke federal law by using a insecure, private server for state business. This call for transparency from the woman who obstructed the previous investigation by deleting over 30,000 subpoenaed emails, hiring a specialist to erase her email history with BleachBit, smashed over 10 devices with hammers and lied repeatedly under oath would make a cat laugh. 

Even if this level of corruption is the new normal, which I would argue is not, then that is surely more reason to push back as a voter who expect the government to obey and uphold the law, not to bend it and break it for personal advantage. Politicians should not rule but represent the voter. The vote is precisely the way to reject dirty politics. As I have said, even knowing this, you can still make a reasonable case why Clinton might be a better choice than Trump, but for those who don’t know the half of her corruption because the media's shroud of obscurantism, you owe it to yourself to add it into your equation.