Two weeks ago I argued that Donald Trump’s bid for the White House was doomed. Now I’m reading headlines from The Guardian that asks, “Will Hillary Clinton lose the election because of the FBI email investigation?”
If she does lose, she’ll have no one to blame but herself. And the rest of us, including her supporters, will be left to wonder why she even ran.
The Guardian story, and others like it, followed the news that FBI Director James Comey had informed Congress about a new inquiry into Clinton’s emails. His action was widely criticized because, by disclosing such information, he broke a long-time Department of Justice policy of unjustly influencing voters so close to an election.
Comey’s mistake was compounded by the fact that FBI investigators had no idea whether any of the emails were among the 32,000 that Clinton deleted after being served a Congressional subpoena. Nor did he present any evidence that any of the emails contained classified information.
But this isn’t Comey’s problem. It’s Clinton’s. Her decision to use a private server was the bigger mistake. And she didn’t help matters by deleting emails, even if they were personal, before surrendering the rest to the investigating committee.
Up to this point though, a non-biased judgment would give Clinton the benefit of doubt. That’s because the FBI later found about 15,000 emails that she didn’t turn over and only one contained State Department related business. And that was nothing more than an ambassador praising her testimony to Congress during the Benghazi hearings.
However, facts don’t seem to matter much anymore. A significant segment of the population is deeply entrenched in party loyalty. They’re after blood and can easily smell a wounded politician in the partisan friendly news media they follow.
Consider that few, if any, Republicans reacted the same way to private server use by White House officials during the George W. Bush administration. It was owned by the Republican National Committee. And more than 20 million emails went missing until Bush left the White House.
The absence of some of those may have conveniently handicapped a special prosecutor investigating high ranking officials, including Karl Rove, Bush’s Deputy Chief of Staff, for illegally exposing the identity of a covert CIA agent. And like Clinton’s emails, that was a case that could have compromised national security.
And now, according to Newsweek, we learn that “Donald Trump’s companies have systematically destroyed or hidden thousands of emails, digital records and paper documents demanded in official proceedings, often in defiance of court orders.”
Trump of course denies this. And Republicans supporting him are sure to dismiss the accusation as more liberal media attempts to influence undecided voters.
Neither Trump nor Clinton are about to admit to anything that suggests they might have broken a law. They haven’t been forthcoming about anything that has the appearance of a conflict of interest. Instead, they both denounce any accusation as dirty politics, then do their best to skirt the issue.
The difference is that Clinton has been in the political arena since her husband was governor of Arkansas. She’s been dragged through the mud of past controversies like the Monica Lewinsky affair, Whitewater, Troopergate, Travelgate, Vince Foster’s suicide, and sexual harassment claims against her husband by several women. It’s made her into a very thick skinned, seasoned politician.
That’s why, as Secretary of State and afterwards, she should have steered clear of anything that could become campaign fodder for the large swath of Republican voters who she knows despise her. But she didn’t. And she shouldn’t be surprised that the scandals erupted over her use of a private email server, private speeches to big banks like Goldman Sachs, and the intersection between the Clinton Foundation and her service as Secretary of State.
Which brings me back to my opening question. Why did she run?
“I will be a president for Democrats, Republicans and Independents,” she said in her nomination acceptance speech. Her campaign slogan, “Stronger Together,” echoes this idea that she’ll unite the people of this country. It’s hard to believe she’ll ever win over the 30 percent of the Republican registered electorate. And she’s not likely to be successful with most right-leaning Independents either.
In my opinion, Clinton is still the superior candidate of the two, but she’ll never heal the ugly partisanship in Congress or on the Main Streets of America. She should have known that before she entered the race to be President. And if that really mattered to her, she would have acted in the best interest of the country by letting someone else represent her party.
• Rich Moniak is a Juneau resident and retired civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience working in the public sector.
