View on the news

Liar, liar, pants on fire…Madame President?

By Christopher Curran
Posted 7/14/16

In a surrealistic presidential primary campaign season that has been more akin to a television reality show than to a serious process to determine who would be eligible to become our chief executive, …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

E-mail
Password
Log in
View on the news

Liar, liar, pants on fire…Madame President?

Posted

In a surrealistic presidential primary campaign season that has been more akin to a television reality show than to a serious process to determine who would be eligible to become our chief executive, voters are searching without success for a capable and forthright candidate.

The presumptive Democratic candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton, had been sweating indictment for her breach of security protocol regarding a private email server that she recklessly used during her tenure as Secretary of State. This incident is not the first time in her professional and political history that she has waited with appropriate anxiety about an indictment. The difference now is she is positioned within reach of the Oval Office and thus needed divine providence, pure luck, or special help from friends to dodge the scrutiny of legal action.

Being caught in a lie or awaiting a reprieve from potential prosecution is nothing new for the presumptive Democratic nominee. In a colored history that includes a variety of scandals with catchy names like “Cattlegate,” “Travelgate,” “Filegate,” the Monica Lewinsky affair, Benghazi, and the latest email security breach, Hillary Clinton has proven herself to be a duplicitous and untrustworthy woman.

Similarly, in this primary campaign season, the former Secretary of State cannot restrain herself from a constant pattern of habitual prevarication. Yet, she has defeated her Democratic opponents and will shortly be dangerously elevated to the presidential nominee for her party.

With a close examination of a long public record that is vacuous of veracity, any voter would be afflicted with an apprehension so strong that one will experience apt trepidation of putting such a deceitful person in the Oval Office.

Strangely in a questionable series of events with an even more confounding outcome, Hillary Clinton will not be prosecuted for her conspicuous breach of security protocols regarding her inordinate email server. FBI Director James Comey concluded after what was called “extraordinary scrutiny and examination” that no prosecutable case could be brought forward. He did however describe a Secretary of State who acted recklessly, stupidly, and arrogantly in her treatment of the security of emails.

His opinion, or some say rationalization, of Clinton’s actions are at least damning if not borderline criminal. Comey stated the following in his public conclusions: “Although we did find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information … our judgment is no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”

Comey expanded upon the schematic of the breach. He said that 60,000 emails were on Clinton’s private server in 2014, while only 30,000 were submitted for investigation. There were 110 emails sent in 52 email chains considered “classified.”

Furthermore, 2,000 emails were retroactively deemed “classified,” eight emails contained “top secret” information, eight emails contained “confidential” information, and 36 contained “secret” information.

Hillary Clinton had lied and said previously, “I never received or sent any material that was marked classified [on her email server when she was Secretary of State].” And: “I think the professionals with whom I communicated were very careful about how they handled classified material – as I was over the course of those four years.”

Distressingly, Comey stated that after thousands of hours of technical sleuthing by apolitical and professional investigators that Clinton “did not engage in the kind of intentional or willful mishandling of classified material that would warrant prosecution.”

Even though Comey’s and Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s reputations were to date beyond reproach, certain actions and occurrences are suspect. A week prior to the exculpatory statement by Comey, former President Bill Clinton accidentally/on purpose pushed his way onto Lynch’s plane in a Phoenix airport for a supposed 45-minute “discussion about grandparenting.” What was said between Lynch and the former president, who originally nominated her to be U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, is a mystery. However, following the “impromptu” meeting Lynch made several public statements that she would defer to the recommendations of the FBI. Usually, the final decision on prosecution lies with the Attorney General of the United States. By relegating herself, she shirked her responsibility and perhaps benefited herself politically in the future in a prospective Clinton administration.

Also, after a 3-1/2 non-binding interview on July 2, neither the FBI nor Clinton would make public the specifics of what was discussed. Any logical human being would be rendered suspicious with these facts and this outcome.

This incident is emblematic of Mrs. Clinton’s entire career. This gray area between forthrightness and deceitfulness is where Hillary has always lived.

Early on in her public life in a scandal called “Cattlegate,” Clinton magically turned an investment of $1,000 in cattle futures into $100,000 within 10 months. Rumors of insider commodities trading abounded, yet the wife of Arkansas’s attorney general and governor was not adequately investigated. No charges were brought.

Further, in 1993, Clinton embellished evidence of accounting improprieties in the White House Travel Office in order to fire almost the entire staff and replace them with the Clinton-connected from Arkansas. When the final investigative report was submitted in 2000 by a special investigator, the conclusion was that Mrs. Clinton made several “factually false” statements.

In the real estate “Whitewater” scandal, Hillary Clinton was a partner in the Rose Law Firm that handled the business of a financial institution called Madison Guaranty. Clinton business partners in the real estate development, Jim and Susan McDougal, were also managers of the financial institution that was misreporting the financial health of the project. Hillary supposedly lost the files pertaining to her representation of the guaranty. After a two-year search, Clinton stumbled upon the files, which were unevenly redacted and miraculously found in the White House book room. Although the McDougals suffered criminal penalties, Hillary skated.

In keeping with Hillary’s bad habits, she has not emerged in this primary campaign with a new dedication to the truth. In fact, Clinton has spouted more falsehoods one after another.

She claimed in January of this year: “We now have driven health care costs [with Obamacare] down to the lowest they’ve been in 50 years.” On the contrary, in the last five years health care costs have risen 18 percent, according to government statistics. Not to mention, the higher deductible on most policies through state and federal exchanges and limited insurance company choices available have incensed the middle class and small business.

In regard to mortgage availability, Hillary said: “You are three times more likely to get a mortgage if you’re a white applicant than if you’re black or Hispanic, even if you have the same credentials.” According the National Association of Realtors, 14.1 percent of all mortgages in the United States are issued to African Americans. Only 12 percent of the population is black. Additionally, 19 percent of all mortgages in the country are issued to people of Hispanic origin, while 17.37 percent of the nation’s population is Hispanic.

These are just a few small samples of the canards that Hillary Clinton has been speaking on the stump in this campaign. She simply has proven herself as a person who cannot tell the truth. She has artfully dodged justice in her career and never experienced the comeuppance that she so richly deserves. Now with the latest test of the voters’ faith regarding the email scandal, she has once again skated from prosecution with the deftness of former Olympic star Dorothy Hamill executing a figure-8.

With a sense of self-aggrandizing entitlement, Clinton is a cagey political operator who skirts the reaches of the law while accumulating and then fighting to retain power. She operates within the gray area between honesty and deception.

For those voters who are considering voting for Hillary Clinton, please consider this: What public statement that she may make as president could you believe? And what policy promises that she asserts can you trust?

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here