We’ve reach a point in America where we can’t have a reasonable conversation, particularly not with someone from a different ideological viewpoint. It should be that looking at an equal set of facts or circumstances we should be able to come to consistent similar conclusions. But that doesn’t happen. It’s pretty much “we’re right, you’re wrong”, “your guys always put all the blame on our guys” and “You’re side does it too!”
If someone is on your team, they can pretty much do no wrong, and if they’re on the other team they can’t basically do anything right. Our guys are always innocent until proven guilty, and sometimes not even then — they’re guys are guilty, guilty, guilty and no amount of mitigating evidence can ever disprove it.
Case in point: Donald Trump who’s recent actions and statements have generated a serious discussion of obstructing justice by practically every mainstream outlet (New York Times, BBC, Slate, Politico, The Hill) or that he should be Impeached (Washington Post) vs. Hillary Clinton who along with some on her staff were accused during the election of being careless, corrupt and criminal and who many on the right (RedState, FoxNews, InfoWars, RealClearPolitics) still say should be indicted.
All things are not exactly equal in all these situations, but we should be able to do some fair and reasonable comparisons and eliminate some of the natural bias if we simply switch names on who did what. What I mean is, if Hillary were accused of doing what Trump has been accused — would we all see their obvious “guilt” or “innocence” the same way?
Let’s see.
During the election there were two investigations going on, one of Clinton in connection to her email server and another of Trump in connection to his ties and connections to Russian hacking and influence on our election. Setting aside for a second whether either is or isn't guilty of the underlying accusations behind these investigations can we learn something about how each group has reacted and responded to them?
What would we discover for example if the shoes were on the other feet? What if we considered what we would think if Hillary and her camp behaved like Trump has and vice versa?
Let’s say for the sake of argument that while he was being investigated by the FBI, Donald Trump’s spouse decided to have a sit down talk with the Attorney General, who as it turned out happened to be an old friend and former employee. I think that might be a problem. Possibly a big one. But wait, what if according to all accounts they never discussed anything involving Donald’s case, and basically only talked about family and kids?
Lynch said this week's meeting happened when [the spouse] was waiting to depart the airport and walked over to Lynch's plane after she landed. Lynch said they mostly spoke about their grandchildren and their conversation was "primarily social and about our travels."
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest addressed the meeting during Thursday's press briefing. Earnest said he believes the meeting did not affect the Department of Justice’s investigation.
Let’s all just admit that’s bad, ok? It’s theoretically possible this might have had some influence on the ongoing FBI investigation even if that specific subject didn’t come up as they claim. [If it did then Lynch would have had to refuse to discuss it under DOJ rules] But let’s say, for the sake of discussion it’s possible Lynch might have felt some sympathy for her old friends, even with being asked could have felt tempted to the FBI to back off.
Instead though she apologized, said she regretted it because of the impression it gave and promised she wouldn't second guess the FBI on the case.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch now says she regrets her tarmac meeting with former President Bill Clinton in Arizona last summer, which came just days before the FBI cleared Hillary Clinton from any criminal wrongdoing in her use of a private email server.
The suspicious meeting — which no one knows what was actually discussed — was a concern for many. Because even if Lynch and Clinton weren’t talking about Hillary’s email scandal, the optics were extremely bad for the sitting attorney general.
…
“I do regret sitting down and having a conversation with him, because it did give people concern. And as I said, my greatest concern has always been making sure that people understand that the Department of Justice works in a way that is independent and looks at everybody equally,” she said.
“And when you do something that gives people a reason to think differently, that’s a problem. It was a problem for me,” the attorney general added. “It was painful for me, and so I felt it was important to clarify it as quickly and as clearly and as cleanly as possible.”
In the best case scenario this could have simply been a boneheaded momentarily lapse of judgement on the part of [the spouse]. Look, these things can happen. People make mistakes and they did apologize right? No harm, no foul. There’s no evidence that as a result of this talk she tried to influence Comey and the FBI. There’s no evidence the FBI would have listened to her actually, it could even be argued that Comey made such a big display of his deciding to not indict [the candidate] because of how improper this meeting seemed.
So appearances matter, and everybody involved agrees this was bad. And stupid.
But then again how bad is it compared to if we had a situation where a theoretical President Hillary Clinton herself decided to talk to the head of the FBI, in the context of decided whether he should or shouldn’t keep his job, then repeatedly asked him if she’s being investigated — a question which violates DOJ protocols according to Charles Krauthhammer.
Simply put, Krauthammer stated that, while he didn’t think it illegal for a sitting President to ask an FBI Director about an on-going investigation, “it looks pretty improper,” adding that the accepted standard for such behavior for an FBI chief is that he or she is “not supposed to tell someone whether they are (under investigation) or not.”
So there’s no question about whether the subject of the investigation did or didn’t come up, IT DID.
And what if, according to sources, President Hillary Clinton had asked for the FBI Director’s to pledge his personal loyalty to her?
Former FBI Director James Comey was "taken aback" by [The President]’s request for a personal assurance or pledge of loyalty at a dinner shortly after [she] took office, a source close to Comey told CNN Friday.
Comey refused to do so, saying he could not provide such a pledge -- those who work at the FBI pledge their loyalty to the US Constitution, not to any individual person -- but he promised to always be honest with the President.
When you ask people at the FBI what do they say about it?
“This loyalty pledge is completely out of line,” Watts said. “The FBI director is given a 10-year term for this exact reason—to prevent the nation’s top law-enforcement officer from being put under undue influence based on political pressures.”
...
“I can’t imagine any FBI agent or director that would respond well to this overt pressure,” Watts said. “They would naturally push away from [the President] to remain independent.”
And sure, let's say for the sake of honesty and clarity that this was a third-hand report and that [Hillary Clinton and her White House spokesperson] have denied this loyalty request, even if [Clinton] then went on to say there would have been nothing wrong with it.
“I don’t think it’s inappropriate,” [The President] told Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro, responding to a report by the New York Times that he asked former FBI Director James Comey in January to pledge loyalty to him.
“Did you ask that question?” Pirro asked.
“No, no I didn’t, but I don’t think it would be a bad question to ask. I think loyalty to the country, loyalty to the United States is important, you know, I mean, it depends on how you define loyalty, number one,” [The President] said. “Number two, I don’t know how that got there, because I didn’t ask that question.”
Be honest with yourself, if President Hillary Clinton had button-holed the FBI Director, drilled him on if she was being investigated 3 separate times — a question he’s technically not allowed to answer — denied asking for his loyalty even if she didn’t think there was anything wrong with asking for it, and then FIRED that FBI Director a few weeks later after he’d not only confirmed there was an investigation and had just asked for more resources on it but didn’t take her complaints about illegal wiretaps seriously would you really think that was better or worse than Trump’s spouse — who had no official government powers at the time - sitting down and talking to her old friend Loretta Lynch about their kids for 30 minutes?
And just to look at things from the another way, if you were horribly outraged by the Tarmac Talk and thought Loretta Lynch should have recused herself — which she didn’t, although she did pledge to accept the FBI’s recommendation, which she apparently did — then why aren’t you outraged when Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he would recuse himself from both the Russia and Hillary investigations, then he signs off on the Rosenstein memo which was almost entirely about the handling of the Hillary Investigation by Director Comey, a decision which — as Loretta Lynch said about the Tarmac Talk simply from the perspective of “appearances" — would clearly have a potential impact on the ongoing Trump/Russia investigation?
If it was wrong for the spouse to chitchat with Loretta Lynch isn’t it far worse for the President to try to directly interrogate and strong-arm FBI Director Comey, ask for his loyalty — allegedly — then fire him for not rolling over, try to cover it up with Rosenstein's letter then threaten him to keep his mouth shut with “Secret White House Tapes” of their conversations?
WASHINGTON — [The President] on Friday warned James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director whom he fired this week, against leaking anything negative about [her], saying that Mr. Comey “better hope” that there are no secret tapes of their conversations that the president could use in retaliation.
Ok, so getting back to reality righties have said that all the hubbub about Trump firing Comey by Democrats has been hypocrisy because several of them had asked him to resign after the Anthony Weiner letter to Congress, and sure they weren't happy with him. Not even a little. But does anyone think Hillary Clinton would have demanded his loyalty with the implied threat of his losing his job if he dared to investigate her before finally firing him just as he showed signs of accelerating that investigation? And wouldn’t she have let the then ongoing Inspector General's investigation of Comey's previous actions complete first rather than getting a deputy at DOJ to write a 3-page memo to use as an excuse, then immediately throw even that memo under the bus Live on CBS News?
Don’t you think, if only for the sake of “appearances” that Hillary would have recused herself over Comey then let the pending IG report and her Attorney General make the call on their own, rather than the reverse as Trump just did? I mean, even if you think Hillary is pure evil, you can’t possibly think she’s this fracking stupid too, right?
I think anyone can say these two situations were both bad, but can anyone say that they are even close to equal? One of these is certainly not like the other. I think if you simply switch chairs, make someone consider how they’d feel if Hillary had done what Trump has admitted to doing, or Trump were accused of what Hillary was accused — but not proven to have done, still— even if that someone still feels that Hillary should be indicted, shouldn’t they also consider that just by his actions in this case alone Trump deserves at least that, if not more?
Ask them what’s more important: your team “winning” or the legitimacy, integrity and dignity of the nation?
Now really this is just one example — and I plan to discuss several more specific examples over the next few days because there are many of them (like for example Hillary being accused of being connected to a underage sex-traffick ring which was a totally false story, meanwhile Trump was business partners with a guy with connections to the Russian mob who really did go on trial in Turkey for running an underage sex-traffick ring) — because unless you're only all about Team Red vs Team Blue I think the answer here is obvious.
One of these situations is infinitely worse than the other.