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Felon-in-Chief
For more than two years, we have discussed whether or not Donald Trump is fit to be President. Little attention has been paid to the same question regarding Hillary Clinton. (No, this is not another defense of Trump’s election.)
Clinton’s preferred policies, methods, and plans for power are beside the point. My concern is more fundamental. Democrats ran an unprosecuted felon for the highest office in the land — and that proposal went unchallenged.
The FBI publicly laid out the case against Hillary Clinton — felonious mismanagement of state secrets — and then usurped the authority of the Department of Justice to decline the “option” of prosecution. No insider knowledge is necessary to recognize her guilt. The details of her crime were public, as was the destruction of evidence.
A felon could have been President of the United States.
It’s bad enough that Democrats have established a habit of disputing electoral results. Let alone attempts to stall or undo their opponent’s presidency since his election.
They have also established, with consent from Republican leadership, that a presidential candidate may not be prosecuted and that this refusal to prosecute means crimes — even rising to treason — do not make a person ineligible for political office.
Has that ship sailed? Will the precedent influence similar decisions in the future? If the powers that be elevated another ineligible candidate to office, would we accept it with the same grumbling meekness with which we accepted Obamacare and other frauds?
Where does this rank among your concerns?
Published in Law
Good post.
A very good question. I think we are becoming inured to the hypocrisy of the Democrats. We are beginning to take their lies and deceptions as a new “normal” part of the process.
I’m having trouble ranking our overall cultural decadence (which I attribute to the decline of belief in God) next to loss of the rule of law, which I believe to be pretty much the end of civilization. I think rule of man and secularism are too closely linked to distinguish the difference. They’re tied for #1.
P.S. Hillary (and Bill) should be in jail. The injustice is appalling.
Where does it rank?
It ranked high enough to prompt me to vote for Donald Trump.
Things don’t rank much higher than that.
I’ve been saying this since election day.
Donald Trump is President today because the powers that be in the (D) Party decided to nominate the one person in the universe even more contemptible to enough voters that she could actually manage to lose an election to Donald Trump.
Be mad at Trump and Trump voters all you want, the (D)’s did it to themselves by selecting this lawless arrogant thug:
Very high in my concerns, but not a darn thing I can do about it, except as Henry Racette, vote for Donald Trump.
Very High! Good post. I think we are entering an era of “Government of men, not of laws” I think that is pretty much my highest priority outside of defense (including border control)
What Democrat would have been an improvement over Hillary? Joe Biden? He’s ruthless, too.
I think we need to make it clear, the danger is on the Left. It doesn’t matter who they pick to run.
Thug is right @westernchauvinist. The corollary is that the Left will do to ANY non-Democrat elected official or candidate for office what they did and are doing to Trump. And Kavanaugh. And Covington School boys. And Neomi Rao. And Amy Barrett. There are no boundaries to the pursuit of power by totalitarians. They mean it.
My points exactly. One more thing – she has publicly confessed to the crimes.
A bigger threat to our republic is the growth of ballot harvesting, motor-voter, early voting, mail-in, and not requiring a photo ID to vote. See Orange County, CA.
I’ve commented about this in the past but it bares reminding.
We focus on HRC’s known crimes because we are able to zero in and definitively state she kept a private server and did State Department business on her non-government computer system, she received and sent classified documents on the private system, she destroyed e-mails and devices which were under Congressional subpoena.
Okay great …. gotcha Hillary …. Right?
No ….. the huge elephant in the room is why did she commit all of the above known crimes at great risk to her Presidential election prospect much less the risk of prosecution and potential prison time.
Whatever HRC was covering up and hiding she felt the risk of committing the crimes listed above outweighed the risk of having whatever she was covering up become public knowledge.
We’ve been allowing the Democrats their regular illegalities since Joe Kennedy bought the Presidency for his precious John, a crime that bent the whole second half of the 20th century into scrap.
You are not a felon until you are convicted. I’m more concerned with our justice system that didn’t yet charge Clinton with anything.
I’ve been wondering too, why the Trump administration didn’t do a thing to correct this. Hillary is the biggest current example of the rich and powerful getting a different standard of justice than the average Joe. This is a violation of one of the most basic tenets of Judeo-Christian values and Western Civilization in general. Justice is supposed to be meted out equally irrespective of your socio-economic status.
Can you image what Robert Mueller would have done to Hillary if she was an official in the Trump campaign? An Army of SWAT Teams would have descended upon her house at 4 o’clock in the morning with guns drawn and bull horns blaring.
With the President’s consent, correct? The statute of limitations has not passed. Politically, it would have been easier to prosecute as soon as evidence was gathered. But the evidence — or at least the record of its wanton destruction — remains with the Department of Justice.
It’s a political firestorm either way.
I’ve always thought we should try very hard not to indict presidential candidates. There’s a real banana republic feel to it, and it’s the kind of thing that could get out of hand quickly.
I think Hillary Clinton was a deeply corrupt woman, but I’d rather see her sink into a well-deserved obscurity than spend time in jail. I think it would be better for the country.
(I would love it if some enterprising investigative journalist wrote a crushing expose of her. But investigative journalists seem to be thin on the ground these days….)
I was recently reading an account of a South (or Central) American government written by one of its citizens that was taking issue with your suggestion. He said that each major Party committed crimes when they were in office, but every time the presidency changed parties after an election, the newly elected party, after having previously denounced their rival party, would routinely pardon the crimes from the ousted party, in a totally symbiotic relationship. The important part was that no matter who got elected, they would both still be able to wield control over the peasants. I see this a little bit in our own two major parties and I don’t like it.
I cannot remember where I read it, or I would provide a link. I also don’t remember which country he was talking about, but it might have been Mexico?
Ah. No rule of law, then.
No, no rule of law. A complete free-for-all, something like anarchy.
Rule of law, but, as I said, try hard not to go indicting presidential candidates — especially the ones who lose.
Oh. I get it. Rule of law for me, but not for thee. If you’re a politician, you’re safe.
Well, no. Not really. There are a lot of politicians who should be in jail. But there are a very few failed presidential candidates who should be in jail, and I think we should be reluctant to prosecute the losers, when we can show leniency.
Why? Because it will be perceived as vindictiveness by the party of the loser, and that would be, I think, deeply damaging to the nation. Better to be lenient, when practical, and consider the defeat a sufficient loss.
Consider: More people voted for Clinton than for Trump — it’s even possible (though by no means certain), that more legal voters voted for Clinton than for Trump. That’s a lot of people to have convinced that the opposing party is taking political vengeance on their candidate. That kind of drama isn’t good for a country; it also invites retaliation.
So, no. Whenever practical, don’t go locking up the loser.
Your suggestion isn’t crazy. But the weight of evidence and weight of the crime should matter.
Clinton didn’t just fail to report something on her taxes or leak minor information to the press. She deliberately, habitually, and by extraordinary measures endangered classified information privileged to one of the highest diplomatic and strategic offices in our government. When discovered, she not only lied about it but had evidence destroyed.
And that’s not even touching accusations of treasonous transactions through the Clinton’s foundations while she was Secretary of State.
Yeah, I agree that she’s pretty much a worst case, and she makes it hard for me to take the position I do. She’s as rotten as they come, and deserves to be in jail.
Pretty high. The apparent fact that Clinton had such low regard for national security compared to her personal ambitions just riles me to no end.
Or else she really is another Hannibal Lecter.
It’s sad to see an old lady sitting in jail. But it’s bad for the country to let the worst criminal would-be despots slide. And I thought you touched on this but now I don’t see it. What else has she done that we don’t know about. Years ago, I saw a Clinton body count. For all the skepticism that such a thing summons, it seemed pretty, well, compelling, from Vince Foster and James McDougal to Ron Brown, to Klaus Eberwein to John Ashe, anywhere from 33 to 56 depending on your criteria (such as body guards). A significant number of these people were purportedly ready to imminently testify against Hillary. So over the years I’ve watched people who betray or are ready to betray her die oddly.
This is not conspiracy theory, this is in the news. And anybody that cares to read it can find it; it’s not a matter of credibility it’s a matter of whether anyone wants to mention it.
We should also consider how many people who voted for Clinton were aware of her crimes.
Many who vote don’t keep up with news. But, even during Comey’s damning testimony to Congress, did the major networks beside Fox News cover those stories?
Some who vote for Democrats wear Che Guevara shirts or cheered Hugo Chavez.
That’s the big question. In the last couple of weeks I’ve read here, varying end scenarios. Some say it’s too late and talk euphemistically about pitchforks, clearly hyperbole, but still pretty severe to say. Others say we must use the law to prosecute the traitors and corrupt criminals in the government; clear the swamp and return to order and law. Other like me say I think there may be a way if the message can get out to disaffected conservatives and “low-information” voters to go to the window and yell, so to speak, under the guidance of sincere, charismatic, conservative voices to unify and stifle any chance at violence. Still others say that we must persevere, and get out views out on social media and with friends.
While others say it will take care of itself. The youth, the unfortunate portentously- and symbolically-named Generation Z, are disenchanted with the left and will right the course of the republic (though I consider that a lot like Venzuelans being disenchanted with Maduro but not socialism in general). Others say there will be life after governmental death so to speak and things will rebuild themselves after the next great fall.
Personally, I am happy to be oldish and will mourn the loss of my country from within my muddy cave, while waiting on the list for a dry cave, if I can get my social credit score up.
I think the point is there is no vision that doesn’t view things as dire, and that doesn’t struggle to find a solution in our own lifetimes. It’s a shame.
I have been waiting for someone to write this post for a long time. Thank you Aaron. That Hillary Clinton has skated while Trump has been harassed for the last two years based on evidence that Hillary’s campaign planted is beyond appalling. We all know that certain people have always managed to escape prosecution, that the deck is often stacked in favor of those in power, but we rarely see a case like this when obvious, proven criminal activity is ignored while bogus, absurd charges are pursued. I have been wondering for two years why Trump’s Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, did not order the FBI to investigate and prosecute Hillary Clinton for the acts she committed while Secretary of State. The fact that she lost the election to Trump should not have given her a pass. Prosecuting her would have been proof, not that we are a third world nation, but that no one is above the law.