The odds of an indictment are looking slim. Patreaus knowingly shared top secret information with his lover and biographer using an email drop box (leaving stuff in an email account in draft form for the other person to read when they log on to the shared account so the message is never actually transmitted). He got hit with a misdemeanor.
Its getting harder and harder to see an indictment coming out of this. Clinton was careless, arrogant and dismissive of the rules but she didn’t intentionally share information with unauthorized people AFAICT.
Her response was a complete dodge. The whole thing has nothing to do with Republicans. None of the Republicans running made speeches for WS firms for fees anywhere near as high as Hillary’s (if at all), and they aren’t the ones even bringing up the issue of speech transcripts. That’s been Bernie Sanders, and CNN was only really repeating Sanders’ call. And that’s pretty far down the scale of media unfairness IMO, to bring up an issue an opposing candidate has already harped on.
But just because it’s a dodge doesn’t mean it won’t serve as a workable patch to this particular hole in her candidacy. And again you can distinguish the smaller issue of what she said in the speeches, probably pretty anodyne though probably one could pore over and take out of context certain embarrassing sound bites, with the bigger issue of the large fortune she and Bill Clinton have made by basically influence peddling. Those fees were higher for both because of the expectation that Clinton’s might eventually be back in the WH, in contrast to fees to true former Presidents (not that those all smelled like roses either). That IMO* is the big problem, not transcripts. And I don’t you’ll hear a lot about transcripts from her general election GOP opponent, again that’s Bernie’s thing.
*as a NeverTrump Republican. If it’s her v Trump I won’t vote for either but would slightly less distressed on the whole if she wins, as long as the GOP retains the House and 40+ votes in the Senate. But the huge problem IMO with Hillary/Bill/Foundation is not what they said in semi-public speeches that probably even junior people from Goldman or guests of Goldman attended, who could have leaked it, and where it’s extremely unlikely anything remotely close to ‘here’s how you can cheat the public’ was said. The issue is what Goldman, and so many others, paid a few $100k a speech for, and that’s some degree of influence in a Clinton II WH, and I don’t see how anybody can say that doesn’t stink. Of course they can say other things stink more…ever as GOP leaning I’m admitting I don’t think Hillary stinks quite as much as Trump, overall.
I don’t see where you get the idea that I think that the FBI should ignore evidence. I also don’t see where you get the notion that an indictment is anything close to likely. I have no doubt that the FBI director would throw himself on his sword before he let the process get politicized and I have very little doubt that he will not recommend an indictment.
To revive this subject. So now that we know some of what her speech to a Brazilian bank (for $225K) says about open borders. She says its out of context but she hasn’t released the transcripts of her speeches.
And it is still just as topical to note that her opposition is just as stubborn releasing info about his dealings with donors. When it comes to releasing information about personal finances and dealings with businesses, which candidate has been more forthcoming?
If you want to limit discussions about this election to whether Trump or Hillary is the better candidate, we might as well close the Elections section until after the election.
These are two of the least popular candidates we have seen in my lifetime and the mere fact that one is decidedly worse than the other doesn’t mean we can simply ignore how bad the lesser of two evils happens to be.
So, once again. Considering how her statements in public seem to differ from her statements to people who give her hundreds of thousands of dollars for a half hour speech, doesn’t her claims that the statements given in private are being taken out of context fall flat when she doesn’t release the speeches?
The Clintons collected over $120 MILLION in speaking fees from Wall Street and special interests. An almost impossible figure unless you are making a quarter million dollars for a half hour speech, then its just 240 hours. A feat that doesn’t really seem likely based on the content of the speech so much as the promise of friendly ears when she becomes president. Perhaps it was just pillow talk to Wall street when she portrayed them as scapegoats for the financial collapse or perhaps its just pillow talk to America when she tells us what she tells us.
She changed her tune on half a dozen issues after Bernie started to threaten her and she said things in these paid speeches that put her to the left of where she claims to be today on issues related to immigration. Some people prefer the original stances that Hillary took but I doubt she would be winning this election by nearly as much if she said “wall street is not at fault for the financial collapse” “open borders” “free trade” “delay retirement age for social security” “spending federal money on public colleges is not a priority”
So was she lying to them or is she lying to us?
Perhaps she genuinely had a change of heart on issues that made her less electable or perhaps she is just saying whatever she needs to say to get elected.
At this point there is no question that she will win, and by a LOT. And the margin of victory is a good thing in that is repudiates Trump and the path the Republicans have been taking for the past few decades. But the margin of victory is a bad thing if she thinks its mandate or a vote of confidence in HER as opposed to a vote of no confidence in Trump.
Why should she? How does it help her to do so? Forget about what you want, and put yourself in her shoes. Better she try and redirect the discussion about how terrible it is that Putin is ordering the hacking of e-mails in the US than to put all her pro-business stuff out there for all to see.
We know from other speeches that she told the banks a politician needs a public and a private position. What she told the bankers was her private position and what she tells the voters is her public position. The reason she never released the speeches is obviously because she does not want the public to know her actual private positions on the issues.
Well, if the evidence was exculpatory, then I assume she would share the transcripts. So is it unreasonable to assume that the evidence is damning, like Trump’s tax returns?
Let’s be clear. Hillary does have a quite low popularity rating- mostly from people who would never vote for a Democrat and certainly not a woman anyway. Rove has spent 20 years making crap up to vilify her, and a certain class of people despise her. Yes, she did screw up with the emails.
Next, I see no real difference in her statements.
There’s a huge difference between “open borders” for customs, “open borders” for immigration, vs as Hillary promoted- “open borders” for energy.
Finally wikileaks commonly edits their releases to show what they want you to see. The Clinton speeches are incomplete, the quotes are out of context.
Well, you know she can remedy that by releasing her transcripts, right?
Right now it looks like she referred to free trade and open borders as separate ideas.
I am not necessarily opposed to these ideas but she seems to be opposed to the seems to be opposed to these ideas in public and in favor of these ideas in private when speaking to people who give her hundreds of thousands of dollars for a half hours speech.
She also seem real conciliatory to the poor wall street bankers who were unfairly maligned and scapegoated with the 2008 crash when she is paid a few hundred thousand dollars for a speech and she seems really tough on them when she is talking to the people who have had to deal with the fallout of the 2008 crash. So who is she lying to?
She can easily provide that context by releasing her transcripts. Just like Trump could provide context to the billion dollar loss by releasing his tax returns.
Two people, speaking for over 15 years, a tad over 700 speeches all told.
*former President George W. Bush makes between $100,000 and $175,000 for every speech he gives and that he has given at least 200 speeches since leaving office in 2009. A bit of simple math translates that activity into more than $30 million for the former president in speech fees alone. *
Sarah Palin also makes a bundle: Since leaving office at the end of July 2009, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee has brought in at least 100 times her old salary – a haul now estimated at more than $12 million – through television and book deals and a heavy schedule of speaking appearances worth five and six figures. She earns $100K per speech. Condoleezza Rice earns $150K per speech
Dont forget the Donald: Trump earned $1.5 million per speech for a series of seminars in a private online learning company’s “real estate wealth expos,”per Forbes reports.
“Ford took umbrage when he was criticized for making money off of his former job, saying that as a private citizen he could leverage his past however he pleased.”
In Hillary’s case it appears she is leveraging her FUTURE.
Yes and when we are considering that celebrity for the most powerful job in the world, it is reasonable to ask what they have said in the past to people she is roundly criticizing on the campaign trail but partial leaks indicate she was flattering in private.
Those many years of precedents started with a presidential candidate that was under audit, Nixon. Remember the “I am not a crook” speech?
Ford only released a tax summary and Romney held back tax returns for the year in which the IRS was handing out immunity to people who were hiding their money offshore if they paid a 100% penalty on the interest they earned (many banks were about to release this information to the US anyway).
This isn’t as bad as being under audit re: taxes but considering her trouble with honesty and trustworthiness, what she says in private to the wealthy seems relevant.
And you think starting another precedent based on private transcripts stolen by a foreign government then released to the public would be a good idea? This would be the same thing as outlawing private speeches, basically. Same with any private conversations conducted electronically-as long as someone steals them and releases them, you would have one of the two parties involved release details of a private conversation between both parties. This eliminates for all intents and purposes private speeches for politicians.