Picking The Bloody Nose

Please pardon the unappealing title, but it is indicative of the unappealing myopia (not optics) of the Republicans conducting the so called investigations and hearings in the House of Representatives. When the Republicans took over the House of Representatives Grand Inquisitor Issa, Chairman of the House Oversight And Government Reform Committee, promised myriad investigations of the Obama administration and promptly disgraced himself even to the point of admitting that his investigations were nothing more than political theater. His misconduct in regard to withholding exculpatory evidence and misrepresenting evidence was so apparent that the Republicans had to replace him as chairman of the Select Committee On Benghazi. His successor on that Select Committee, Mr. Gowdy then presided over an inept eleven hour grilling of Hillary Clinton regarding Benghazi and her private e-mail server. Hillary got much the better of that hearing and in doing so revealed that Congressman Gowdy, like Grand Inquisitor Issa, was engaged in a witch hunt.

The bloody nose the Republicans received from all the bogus investigations, including Benghazi, did not deter them. Their great hope shifted away from their own witch hunts to the FBI's investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of her private email server. James Comey the Director of the FBI is a life long Republican with a sterling reputation for integrity and independence. This would seem to make Mr. Comey unassailable, but the Republicans tried to have it both ways by praising him while accusing the Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the Clintons, and President Obama of tainting the investigation. Those accusations became more shrill after a chance meeting between Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch on the tarmac of an airport. Ms. Lynch answered the Republican accusations about her tampering with the investigation by asserting the independent nature of the investigation and by saying that she would abide by whatever Mr. Comey recommends.

On July 6, FBI Director Comey took the unprecedented step of holding a press conference to reveal and explain his recommendations. In that conference Mr. Comey said Hillary Clinton was extremely careless in regard to handling confidential material, but that she did not intentionally violate of any laws. He added that without any criminal intent on her part no reasonable prosecutor would bring charges against her. Mr. Comey's scathing criticism of Hillary Clinton's use of her private email server would have given the Republicans more than enough ammunition to use against her, but as usual they wanted much more than a good campaign issue. What the Republicans wanted and still want is a criminal indictment that will destroy Hillary Clinton politically! So on July 7, they hastily held a hearing in which to grill FBI Director Comey, who they were now castigating for not recommending that charges be brought against Hillary Clinton. When it comes to bad political theater one would have to go back to the eleven hour grilling of Hillary Clinton to find anything as bad as this grilling of Director Comey. It was as gross as picking the bloody nose.

Most of the Republicans seemed intent on arguing about what they think the law is or should be rather than what the law actually is, and they were so unprepared that they repeated ad nauseam questions already asked and answered. The Republicans that are attorneys turned their attention to the Espionage Act which does not require a willful or intentional violation in order to establish criminal negligence. The problem for those Republicans wanting to charge Hillary for gross negligence, however, is that there is no recent precedent for bringing that charge and there are some legitimate questions about the constitutionality of the negligence provisions of the act.

None of that mattered to Jason Chaffetz (R. Utah) who saw another way to get Hillary Clinton. Mr. Comey said that out of the 30,000 plus emails reviewed by the FBI around 100 of them contained classified material. So Congressman Chaffetz concluded that Hillary Clinton lied to the public and to congress when she said the emails did not contain classified material. Gotcha! Gotcha! Gotcha! Mr. Chaffetz could hardly contain his glee. Perjury charges are better than negligence charges, and they do not require the Republicans to explain why they were not upset when it was revealed that Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice also used their personal email accounts for official business. Mr Chaffetz cheerfully said he will request that the FBI investigate whether Hillary Clinton committed perjury when she testified at the Congressional hearing on Benghazi. But I am sure it did not occur to Mr. Chaffetz that perjury also requires intent, merely showing that testimony is inaccurate is not enough!

Proving that Hillary intentionally lied will not be an easy thing to do. As Representative Cummings pointed out: of the 30,000 plus emails only 100 or so contained any confidential material, and of those one hundred emails only 3 had any marking or designation that would indicate they contained classified material. Furthermore none of the documents had a conspicuous Classified header as required by the manual; instead those 3 emails had “[c]” to designate paragraphs that contained classified material, and it has been determined that even those classified designations were unwarranted. The question therefore will revolve around whether Hillary knowingly made references in her emails to documents she knew were classified or subjects she knew were classified.

At any rate this determination to prosecute Hillary Clinton for something, anything is a certain indication of an inquisition in the most pejorative sense of the term. It is the desperate gasp of a political party that gave us the crash of 2008 and has failed utterly to govern this country even when that party had control of both houses of congress. It is the fear mongering of a party that has to depend on fear and loathing because it is knowingly nominating a Presidential candidate who is even more flawed than Herbert Hoover and George W. Bush! In short, the allegations against Hillary Clinton carry with them the unmistakable odor of desperation and moral decay!