Three Reasons Why Hillary Clinton’s Emails are Different from Nixon’s Watergate
(or why it’s time to purge government of Irrational Obstructionists)
It’s almost impossible to see clearly through the mess and muck that is this election. The media covering the presidential race need a story so badly they’re ready to grasp at any rumor or innuendo, and they love a story all the more if it might precipitate the fall of a woman as strong as Hillary Clinton. She has won all three debates against Donald Trump, has actual coherent policy plans, a solid history of working across the aisle, is supported by Democrats and responsible Republicans alike, has been endorsed by every newspaper anyone considers even moderately legit.
Did we think it was going to be easy? Electing the first woman president has brought out a kind of anger and fear probably not seen since the fear of communism or the nuclear threat. People are afraid because it’s something they’ve never seen before and with each new Wikileaks dump (which shows nothing), the Comey letter (again, nothing) and whatever else these idiots throw up in the air for the crows to peck at, the fearful run towards the familiar, the salesman, the Donald. He will make America GREAT again. White again. Rich again. Selfish again. Forget your troubles, come on get happy. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, bring it on. Climate change? Forget it. Immigrants? Kick them out, build a wall. Drowning and dying refugees? Go somewhere else. We are Americans. We care only about our own pleasure.
Myth number 1
“It’s worse that Watergate.” Trump repeatedly claims that the investigation into Hillary’s emails is worse than Watergate.
His ignorant loyalists who swallow anything he says are eager to believe it. But no one who knows the facts of the Watergate case can possibly agree. Here’s a key difference: Hillary Clinton is insisting that the FBI release the new emails they say they’ve discovered. She’s saying: show America everything you have. Because she’s confident there’s nothing of any consequence to be found.
In stark contrast, Nixon fired the special prosecutor in a clumsy attempt to keep his White House tapes from being released. Why? Because he knew what he had said, he knew how it sounded, and he knew that it would ruin him. He knew the tapes would prove he broke the law. The Watergate break-in itself was a relatively insignificant infraction. The bungling amateur intruders were there to bug the DNC headquarters and rifle through files, in hopes of gather damaging intel about their Democratic opponent. If it had ended there, Nixon’s involvement would have been difficult if not impossible to prove. His mistake, his far more incriminating violation, occurred with what Nixon was willing to do next, when he talked to John Dean about paying people off to keep them quiet. That effort to obstruct justice, explicitly linking the President to a conspiracy, would provide the grounds for 9 articles of impeachment, and that’s the reason Nixon resigned in disgrace.
Myth number 2
“Hillary Clinton committed a crime.” The truth here is that many in the Republican party have long wanted — needed — proof that Hillary has broken the law. They chant “Lock her up,” as though it has any factual basis whatsoever, that some covered up crime was never fully prosecuted. They dwell in this reality and no one really disabuses them of their delusion, least of all Trump.
They desperately want to convince people that Hillary, a good Methodist girl who was top of her class at Yale Law School, is a reckless law-breaker. The plain truth of it is that Hillary Clinton is not a person who would even cheat on a crossword puzzle, let alone break the law. They call her a ‘liar’ and a ‘criminal’ and a ‘whore’ — with no proof, just delusion.
Here’s how this got so bad: When the irresponsible Josh Rogin wrote in The Washington Post that Hillary Clinton was getting special treatment at the hands of the FBI, it put Director James Comey in a sticky position. Comey, a lifelong Republican, could not abide being seen as someone who would give anyone in the opposition party special treatment, especially not Hillary Clinton. Read deep into Rogin’s story and you will quickly see that his assertions hold no water. As anyone who’s been paying attention should surely know by now, in order for mishandling of these rather meaningless emails to violate the law, it must be shown that there was an intent to deliberately share classified information. If anyone distributes or shares classified information knowingly, with intent to let someone see it who shouldn’t — only then is the law broken.
If a message is inadvertently shared, without noticing that an internal paragraph was marked (“C”) for classified, or without awareness that the (“C”) means classified, then no law has been broken. Distribution of classified material is only a crime if the person in possession of the message deliberately shows it to someone whom they know should not see it. How does Josh Rogin not understand this? How does Trump not know this? How do voters not see this? … In fact, how many readers have noticed what I have done in this paragraph? How many of you know that (“C”) Does Not Mean Classified? I expect most of you do know that (“C”) simply means “confidential” — a much lower security status. But listen to Trump get this wrong again and again. He repeatedly tweets and screams at rallies: “Lyin’ Hillary Clinton told the FBI that she did not know the “C” markings on documents stood for CLASSIFIED.” Well, of course not, dummy. Because (“C”) means “confidential.”
Josh Rogin uses the word “classified” eight times in his Oct 18th “opinion column,” fuzzing up the facts in a slippery hit piece that very likely prompted Comey to lose his mind. Without bothering to clarify the enormous differences in the types of classified material at issue, Rogin tries desperately to conflate Hillary’s handling of 3 emails marked (“C”) for confidential with two high-profile but entirely irrelevant cases of sensitive classified information. First, the felonious actions of General James E. Cartwright, who lied to the FBI about “leaks of classified information about covert operations against Iran to two journalists;” and second, the criminal negligence of General David Petreaus who “passed hundreds of highly classified documents to his biographer and mistress Paula Broadwell.”
Rogin ends this way: “Can Clinton or Petraeus plausibly make the same claim regarding their indiscretions?” Of course they can, Mr Rogin, because the charges again Petraeus have no similarity to the Clinton investigation whatsoever. Neither in proven intent nor the degree of severity. The answer: Yes! Yes! Clinton can claim innocence! Petraeus and Cartwright cannot! Why are you comparing them? How, in any way, are they the same?! Did Hillary willingly share classified information with someone she wanted to fuck? No! With a hack writer who had been hired to write a fluff biography? No! With reporters looking for a scoop? No!
Why does no responsible journalist anywhere care enough to correct this lie? The Washington Post, no less, should know better. They get around printing these falsehoods by publishing them on their “opinion” page, but the way the “story” is framed and disseminated is nothing of the sort. There is simply no comparison between these cases, no damning parallels to be drawn. But the damage had been done, and Comey decided he could no longer withstand accusations that he had let her off easy. After all, he’s been trying to nail Hillary for years before this. If he could have prosecuted her, he would. But he had to prove INTENT and he could not do it then, and he can’t do it now.
The truth is, for 30 years now they’ve upended every aspect of Hillary Clinton’s life and career and came up empty, with nothing, nada, zip. The best they can come up with is that the FBI, goaded by the fanatical right wing, is that she used a private server, which was not against protocol at the time, and in a nest of hundreds of thousands of emails they combed through they find teeny tiny markings on three of them. Comey, who has a history of trying to “get Hillary” had no choice but to say well, it was careless but if it had been a crime there would be obvious intent to spread classified information for whatever reason. Such was not the case, because such would never BE the case. Anyone who works with Hillary in Washington knows this.
Myth number 3
“It will lead to a constitutional crisis if Hillary Clinton is elected.” NO, people. NO. If you want to see the catalyst for a constitutional crisis, that would be Donald J. Trump — the conman who wants America to unite with Russia to “bomb the shit” out of every nation that might give these two megalomaniacs the stinkeye. That’s just for starters. What is really dangerous about Donald Trump’s rise to power is what he brings along with him, the shit-stream stuck to his heel that he refuses to do anything about. Say it with me, folks: White Supremacy. Make no mistake — this election is about a last gasp effort of the shriveled faction of the white male electorate to hold onto their evaporating power.
Hillary Clinton did not break any laws because she did not knowingly or willfully send or receive classified information that should not have been sent, nor did she share classified information with anyone for any wrongful purpose, nefarious or otherwise. Got that? It looks as if a sizable majority of Americans will be electing Hillary Clinton to be our president on November 8th — not a loser who crawled out under a rock like Jason Chaffetz and other obstructionists like him. If those idiotic members of Congress choose to waste more taxpayer money putting Hillary through hearing after hearing and not letting her lead — then THEY NEED TO BE THROWN OUT! Because THAT is the constitutional crisis.
THROW THOSE USELESS CONGRESSMEN OUT! Enough is enough. They’ve obstructed our nation’s progress for way too long. They are the primary reason why we had no effective leadership before 9/11. They were busy prosecuting Bill Clinton for having an affair at a time when we were about to be attacked by Osama Bin Laden. It is THEY who ought to be held accountable.
Trump cannot happen because we won’t let it happen, those of us who give a damn anyway. We will win because the future of America, and the legacy of Barack Obama, is not going to put back in the hands of the same white men who fought in the Civil War to maintain the right to enslave human beings.
We won’t let it happen because the future of this country depends on not going backwards. The future will be put in the hands of people who are ready for real change, for the changing America that invites the kind of change that will protect us, protect the natural world from our pillaging, and encourage the brilliant men and women in technology to find a better way forward.
Those of us who are fighting for the vulnerable know what we are fighting for. Those who have not joined our fight are comfortable with what America knows best, and that is how to fabricate celebrities like Donald Trump, and how to coddle billionaires, like Donald Trump. He has contributed NOTHING to American society. He has simply taken whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. He was brought up believe the rules don’t apply to him, and he has rarely had to face anything to prove otherwise.
Change is hard. Change is ugly. Change is messy. But despite the fact that she was born a woman, Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest. She’s an extraordinarily honorable individual who, believe it or not, tries to do the right thing. She’s a strong compassionate leader and she stands as the only hope we have to beat back the most dangerous element to threaten in America in over 150 years — the sick remnants of that unfinished business left over from the Civil War that demands “White America must be ruled by white males.” Sorry to tell you, fellas, on Election Day that demand will not be satisfied. Get over it.
