At this point, it’s pretty clear that the scandal surrounding Hillary Clinton’s emails isn’t going away anytime soon. The Associated Press recently reported that 22 emails on her likely compromised private email system contained information at the highest levels of classification. At every turn, it seems that Clinton’s dissembling is exposed by new revelations showing that her handling of classified information was worse than previously suspected. (And curiously, no one’s even talking about how she is likely in violation of several basic transparency statutes.)
In the wake of this latest development, here are three big questions that need answering:
Question 1: What sort of role is the White House playing in the investigation and is it exerting any pressure to exonerate Clinton?
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said last week that that Hillary Clinton would not be indicted “based on what we know.” Are the Justice Department and FBI briefing the White House on the ongoing investigation? What does the White House know that we don’t? Given the political consequences of an indictment and the fact that the White House may have lots of reasons to influence the investigation that have nothing to do with seeing the law fairly applied, doesn’t the White House’s statement about Clinton not being indicted come off as unseemly?
On the other hand, President Obama and Vice President Biden have both signaled some degree of support for Bernie Sanders. A few weeks ago, the president let it be known he privately met with Sanders and Biden slammed Hillary in the press, saying Sanders was more authentic.
Maybe they’re still hedging their bets at the White House?
Question 2: What’s in those classified emails? How serious and damaging is this information to national security?
Not that I expect this question to be answered explicitly, but the Clinton camp is insisting these latest emails the feds are calling “top secret” are much ado about nothing. “We firmly oppose the complete blocking of the release of these emails. Since first providing her emails to the State Department more than one year ago, Hillary Clinton has urged that they be made available to the public. We feel no differently today,” read a statement from the Clinton campaign.
However, that position is refuted by this Fox News report that says the emails contained “operational” intelligence that possibly put lives at risk. If Fox News is accurate, then I suppose we have to entertain the possibility that the Clinton campaign is engaged in an especially brazen lie because they know that as long as the sensitive emails aren’t released it’s largely hearsay as far as the voting public is concerned. The more sensitive the information in question is, the more unlikely it is this information is going to see the light of day. Such a bald-faced denial would be an unlikely consideration if we were talking about anyone other than the Clintons. But we are, so it’s not.
But let’s entertain the possibility that Clinton’s right, and the feds are being overly cautious. That might actually be worse news for Clinton. There’s a lot more to this scandal than just this latest batch of classified emails, and the fact the feds are being so cautious would suggest that they know the stakes are high and they are being meticulous because, well, if you come at the king you best not miss. On that note, I’ll just pass on this email I received from a friend that really drives this point home:
Yup, that about covers it.
Question 3: Do Democrats really want to back Hillary Clinton given how damaging this scandal is likely to be?
Look, I’m not kidding myself. If I were a betting man, I’d say that, among the current field Hillary Clinton has the best shot of becoming the next president for a lot of structural and cultural reasons (and none of those reasons are necessarily indicators of a healthy republic). But even if she wins, Clinton is already damaged goods:
It’s going to be an unusually bitter, hard-fought, and decisive election. The credibility of Hillary Clinton’s presidency will rest on 1) narrowly avoiding prosecution for obvious wrongdoing that has sent many likely more decent Americans to Leavenworth 2) a few thousand voters in Ohio, Colorado, or some other swing state. This is not exactly a strong political mandate, especially considering her already ridiculous unfavorability ratings. She’s not going to have the strong floor of support Obama has had throughout his presidency. And with Clinton in the White House to run against, don’t expect Democrats to regain control of Congress anytime soon. Further, I don’t see Republicans being nearly as restrained as they were with Obama in pushing back against, say, unconstitutional unilateral executive action. It’s likely the tensions and divisions of Obama’s presidency will be greatly exacerbated by Clinton in the White House. I can easily envision several scenarios where President Clinton goes from being disliked by a majority of Americans to dealing with post-Watergate Nixon approval ratings.
Now because of the Supreme Court and the other obvious reasons, I can still see Democrats rolling the dice and deciding that Hillary Clinton in the White House is better than the GOP controlling all three branches of government long enough to repeal Obamacare, bomb Tehran, violate the Logan Act with impunity, and whatever other dark fantasies give NPR listeners the howling fantods.
But with Hillary at the top of the tickets, Democrats really need to ask themselves: At what point does winning ugly become essentially a pyrrhic victory?
