http://thefederalist.com/2015/09/03/could-this-be-the-scandal-that-finally-sinks-hillary-clinton/Could This Be the Scandal That Finally Sinks Hillary ClintonThose of us who have been watching politics for the last quarter of a century have asked this question time and again, as the Clintons wriggled out of a dozen different kinds of shady behavior. And each time we think somethings finally going to take them down, they skate. Its kind of like being a Cubs fan: maybe next year.
But there are five reasons why Hillary Clintons e-mail scandal could finally be the one.
1) Its not about Bill.People like Bill Clinton. I dont really know why; hes always struck me as a smarmy used car salesmen. But people actually do buy used cars from questionable characters, and the general public somehow likes Bill Clinton and wants to cut him some slack. Sometimes theres just no accounting for these things.
But Hillary is not Bill. She cant do that thing where he responds to a scandal with finger-wagging outrage at the unjust accusations one moment, and humble, lip-biting contrition the next, and people buy it. She seems cold and distant, and her lame attempts to laugh off the scandal as a non-issue dont make her seem buoyantly confident. They just make her seem contemptuous and out of touch.
There are plenty of peopleDemocratic Party activists, mostlywho have a vested interest in making excuses for Hillary. But she doesnt have the kind of mysterious charisma that gets her a free pass with the general public.
2) Its about a real issue. **
There were some real issues behind the previous scandals, as we wasted a lot of time explaining to anyone who would listen, which wasnt many people. But the most famous issue on which the Clintons skatedBills dalliance with a White House internseemed like it was all about his personal sex life, not matters of state. So who cared, really?
This scandal is about national security. Its about Hillary Clinton casually, recklessly mishandling something that was central to her job as Secretary of State: protecting the secrets of the United States. Thats why the latest revelation is so important: that her unsecure homebrew e-mail server was not merely the passive recipient of classified information sent to her by others, but that she used it to 766 Comments containing classified material.
3)Its about something concrete.The biggest Clinton scandal by far is the way the family cashed in after Bill left office, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars in speaking fees and consultancies, far beyond the actual value of any work they providedmoney that is obviously being laid down in an attempt to secure access and favors from the Clinton family. And all of that money has been washing around between Bill and Hillary and their foundation, which seems to operate mostly as a family slush fund.
But the thing about influence peddling is that its vague and hard to pin down. Thats why people do it. Everybody knows the rules of the game: give money and you get access, you get an ear eager to hear your concernsbut there is never any explicit quid pro quo, no smoking gun that can send anybody to jail. So critics are left pointing to overall patterns that seem suspicious, but it can all just be brushed off as coincidence.
The e-mail scandal is specific and concrete. Its about a server and a hard drive. Its about a specific classified message sent at a particular time from a particular e-mail account. Its a lot harder to explain away.
4) Its something people have been prosecuted for. **
Its hard to turn back once youve made a witch hunt out of mishandling classified information. Too many people have been prosecuted for that under this administration. Most famously, prosecutors went after General David Petraeus for keeping physical notebooks with classified information in his homewhich is actually more difficult for our enemies to steal than the contents of a server, which can be hacked remotely. While you might be able to get someone to construct an argument about how that case is totally different from this one, its a distinction that isnt going to hold up.
5) It turns Hillarys big accomplishment into a big liability.Secretary of State is the only executive office Hillary Clinton has ever held. When she lost the Democratic primary in 2008, this was the position she wanted as her stepping stone back to the presidency. It was an office in which she could rack up experience doing something that seems p**********ldealing with foreign policywithout having to take responsibility for wh**ever Obama messed up in domestic policy.
This scandal takes the one big thing Hillary Clinton has done in the past ten years to demonstrate her credentials to run for president, and it turns that one big asset into a big liability. It turns her tenure at the State Department into something she cannot mention without raising questions about all the classified information she potentially laid bare to Russian and Chinese hackers.
When it comes to actual prosecution, the Clintons are masters at getting off on a technicality, claiming that they didnt really violate the strict letter of the law because it all depends on what the meaning of the word is is. And you know they can afford flesh-eating lawyers who will work every angle for them if this goes to court.
But we also know just how ambitious the Clintons are. We know that the real punishment for them isnt prosecution or prison. It is being denied access to power. All this scandal really has to do is to make Hillary Clinton look unfit to be commander-in-chief.
After all, nobody can keep getting away with this stuff. Its all got to catch up with them some time.
**18 USC 793
(f)Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense
(1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.