Hillary and the Apple Cart

Almost from the day of President Obama’s re-election in November, 2012, Mrs Clinton has been the clear Democratic front-runner for 2016. She has had no serious challenger in her own party until recently. Much is being made that Bernie Sanders is polling well in New Hampshire and Iowa. This is what you would expect from a liberal contender in these states. The race will narrow as the primary season gets closer. The Republicans have not yet fixed on an opponent who will give Hillary a run for her money, unless you believe Donald Trump will make a viable candidate.

However, in typical Clinton fashion, an apple cart has been upset by the candidate herself. A few months ago, it was disclosed that during Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State, she used a private e-mail server which may, or may not, have been used by her to send classified information.

The American media has gone wild because it smells scandal. The pro-Hillary tribe proclaims her innocence, pointing to her denial last March that she “did not e-mail any classified material on my e-mail,” all 55,000 pages of it. The anti-Hillary destruction crew say the contrary must be the case. They point to a report by the Inspector General of the intelligence community who concluded that, after examining a small number of the private e-mails, on at least four occasions classified information was sent and that potentially hundreds of classified e-mails had been sent.

In April this year, retired US army General David Petraeus was sentenced to two years’ probation and fined $100,000 for sharing highly classified information with his biographer (and lover), Paula Broadwell. According to Anne Tomkins, the US attorney who oversaw the Petraeus prosecution, there is no comparison between the two cases. General Petraeus admitted that he knew what he was doing, whereas Hillary did not. Quite how Ms Tomkins reaches such a conclusion has not been explained. Last week, Mrs Clinton said, “It was fully above board. Everybody in the government with whom I emailed knew that I was using a personal email.” In this carefully worded way, Mrs Clinton has apologised for her private e-mail arrangement.

I don’t believe this apology will be enough to get Mrs Clinton out of trouble. There is a Watergate feel to what is happening. In 1972, Nixon and his advisers believed the Watergate burglary problems would be solved through a PR initiative. By the time Nixon realised that Watergate’s political and legal issues were paramount, it was too late to save his Presidency.

It is almost six months since the existence of the private server was made public. The FBI says its investigation is not complete. Sources within the FBI say it is a criminal probe. The Clinton camp say the probe is civil and fact-finding in nature. They continue to handle the situation by making PR offensives which, presumably, they hope will make the problem go away. What has happened to the famous Clinton antennae?

Instead of trying to win a PR battle, Mrs Clinton should recognise she has a political calamity on her hands. She should call for the FBI to put up or shut up and seek a speedy trial. She can accuse her investigators of playing politics by the delay as it will interfere with her White House run. She should demand specimen charges be brought against her now or the matter should be dropped. If Mrs Clinton is prosecuted and found guilty and fined before the primaries start, she should pay and be done with, after making a fulsome apology to the voters.

The potential ramifications are huge. There is already a lot of mud that can be thrown at Hillary. Her billing record at the Rose Law firm, the Whitewater fiasco, her failure to make progress in Congress with healthcare legislation, the unauthorised removal of furniture from the White House in 2000 when the Clintons left and the Benghazi fiasco when she was Secretary of State. Add to this the suspicion amongst many American voters that she cannot be trusted to tell the truth, all will be ammunition for the Republicans after they settle on their presidential candidate.

By letting Servergate drag, Mrs Clinton is allowing upset apple cart to grow legs. If she is not prosecuted, talking heads at Fox News will, no doubt, accuse the Attorney General of interfering with a criminal investigation and countermanding an FBI decision. Possibly, the President might be accused of directing the AG to abandon a prosecution, which he has power to do, and face a Republican Congressional initiative for impeachment for failing “faithfully to defend the Constitution.”

Should Mrs Clinton be prosecuted, that is not necessarily an end to her campaign. Republican hopeful Rick Perry was been indicted for abuse of power but has only just removed himself from the race for the Republican nomination. I think he took this action not because of the prosecution but because he could no longer adequately finance his run. In the 2012 presidential campaign, Democratic candidate John Edwards was prosecuted for violating campaign contribution laws. The prosecution did not force him out of the race. It was his marital infidelity that ended his run. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is being investigated over alleged campaign contributions yet he remains in the Republican race.

If Mrs Clinton takes the steps I advocate and loses her fight in court, she will know the American public likes a fighter, especially one who comes back after a loss. After all, her husband was known as “the Comeback Kid.” However, what voters will not like is a person who upsets an apple cart and leaves it to others to clear up the mess.