Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Ho-Hum, Hillary is Corrupt



Vincent J. Curtis

24 August 2016


Further proof, if any was needed, of Hillary’s corrupt use of her office for personal financial benefit came to light yesterday.  After three years of being stonewalled by the State Department of John Kerry on a FOIA request for Hillary’s calendar and schedules, and finally going to court over it, the Associated Press (AP) finally received the documents that show Hillary’s pay-to-play scheme in action.

That Hillary corruptly misused her office for personal financial gain has been in the public domain since the publication of the book Clinton Cash by author Peter Schweizer in 2014.  With just publically available sources, Schweizer was able to document a remarkable series of co-incidences in which Hillary dispensed the powers of her office to the benefit of contributors to the Clinton Foundation or who financed (to the tune of $500,000 +) speeches given by husband Bill.

The contents of the book called for an investigation by the FBI, but so far that dog hasn’t barked.  Clinton hit-men denounced the book as “discredited” and “completely lacking in proof.” (The latter, as Switzer admitted.  Proof is the stuff the FBI brings to court.  Like emails, phone records, and appointment calendars, and even these are not “proof,” merely stronger circumstantial evidence.)

(As I’ve noted many times before, to be lacking in proof does not mean there is no truth to the accusation.  That it is false to say the deed was done.  If the perp destroys the evidence, then there is no proof crime – which is partly why destruction of evidence is itself a crime.  Listen carefully to a Clinton denial or counteraccusation and you won’t hear them say that the accusation is untrue.  They will say, “you have no proof.”.  Or, “These are attacks by Republicans…”  These refutations are non-denial denials.)

All the release of these latest documents do is strengthen the belief that many held earlier: that Hillary is a corrupt liar who used her office for profit.  The question is whether the scales will start to fall from the eyes of those inclined to support Hillary for President.

Clinton campaign spokeliar Brian Fallon said that the AP story relied on “utterly flawed data”

"It cherry-picked a limited subset of Secretary Clinton's schedule to give a distorted portrayal of how often she crossed paths with individuals connected to charitable donations to the Clinton Foundation. 
"The data does not account for more than half of her tenure as Secretary. And it omits more than 1700 meetings she took with world leaders, let alone countless others she took with other U.S government officials, while serving as Secretary of State.
"Just taking the subset of meetings arbitrarily selected by the AP, it is outrageous to misrepresent Secretary Clinton's basis for meeting with these individuals. Melinda Gates is a world-renowned philanthropist whose foundation works to address global health crises and eradicate disease in the developing world. Meeting with someone like Melinda Gates is squarely in the purview of America's top diplomat, whose job involves confronting these same global challenges."  (extract courtesy of Fox News.)
Why a news report would reprint dictation from a spokeliar for Hillary’s Campaign escapes me.  Fallon has no direct knowledge of this affair at all.  He didn’t work for Hillary at that time.  His dismissal of “cherry picking” and “arbitrary selection” would be flaws obvious to those doing the analysis, and the AP is not exactly stupid or rabidly anti-Clinton, as most of the press are rabidly anti-Trump.  Fallon obviously took his lines from Bill or Hillary herself.  Maybe the media think that reprinting unchallenged dictation amounts to “balance” in a news story concerning the Clintons.

The press report exposing Hillary’s corruption thus contains an unanalyzed, unchallenged Clintonian non-denial denial.

What is called for is a denial or an explanation, and a press conference, by Hillary Clinton herself.  But don’t hold your breath for one.  No reporter asked Fallon when Hillary would address this serious matter personally, and if not, why not.  I guess everybody knows how this game is played, and it was too tiresome to go through the motions of actual journalism.

Trump is going to have to keep hitting on this further proof of Hillary’s corruption to make the media get up and do its job.  His call for a special prosecutor is an old dog-whistle to the media, and repeated blasts on it might make the media sit up and take notice.
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