Hillary Clinton is behaving like she has the Democratic nomination sewn up. She is threatening to stop debating her opponent, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. And no less an authority on Democratic politics than David Plouffe, President Obama’s successful former campaign manager, thinks it’s in the bag already.
It is probably true; the betting odds of Sanders winning the nomination are 10-to-1 against on the first online betting site we checked, which seems about right. But that doesn’t mean Democratic voters feel good about nominating someone who has been caught lying again and again. Sanders may not be able to close the delegate gap with victories like the five he enjoyed last week, but there is a good reason his campaign didn’t peter out long ago, and why he wins by such enormous margins among Democratic voters who cite honesty and integrity as the most important qualities in a candidate.
The FBI acknowledged in court on Friday, in response to a freedom of information request, that it has not contacted Clinton regarding its investigation of her mishandling of classified information. This is interesting, because Clinton said in a town hall meeting earlier this month that she had been informed by the FBI that she is not a target in the investigation. She offered this in the way of reassurance to Democrats that this investigation will not escalate during the campaign season, possibly throwing the presidency to the GOP nominee.
Should voters believe the FBI that it has not contacted Clinton, or should they believe her that it has? The question answers itself; the law enforcement agency or the proven fabricator? Not difficult.
Clinton has already claimed that she did not email or host classified information on the private system run from the non-secured server she kept in her basement. “I did not e-mail any classified material to anyone on my e-mail,” she said. “I’m certainly well aware of the classification requirements and did not send classified material.”
This turned out to be false. Although she has tried to object that much of the material was not “marked” classified when sent, both federal law and her own non-disclosure agreement explicitly note that this is not a meaningful distinction.
Clinton has also repeatedly maintained that “there was no law … there was no regulation” preventing what she did. This is also untrue. Although the occasional use of private email for some government work is not strictly forbidden, both law and regulation forbade her from hiding her work product from Congress and the public by keeping these records at home for (in the case of the earliest ones) up to five years after they were created.
As secretary, it was actually Clinton’s duty under the law to make sure her entire department’s work product was available for fulfilling congressional and freedom of information requests, which obviously she did not do.
It is also clearly against the law to store classified federal government information on an insecure server in one’s home, and again, it is immaterial whether that information has been “marked” classified. Clinton was well aware of this as she sent and received hundreds of emails containing classified information.
All this scandal, and all of these false statements, all because Clinton didn’t want to live under the same rules as the little people who work in government.
So the FBI had not spoken to Clinton as of last week. What we know now is that the bureau will be speaking to her soon. It’s impossible to say where this will lead. Perhaps it will lead nowhere except to her nomination. But Democratic voters still have a choice, and Clinton should debate him.
