They can't help themselves. For Democrats, the Clinton campaign, and presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, everything reflecting negatively on them must be cast in a partisan light — even something as petty as the party affiliation of the congressional addressees of a letter from the FBI.
At yesterday's press conference, reacting to James Comey's letter to Congress indicating that the bureau has “learned of the existence of (Hillary Clinton) emails” which he concluded must be reviewed “to determine whether they contain classified information,” Hillary Clinton twice created the impression that the FBI Director had deliberately communicated only with Republican members of the House of Representatives, and had deliberately cut Democrats out of the loop. Her contentions are blatantly false. Of course, the pliant establishment press is not reporting those portions of what Mrs. Clinton said.
Here are the two times Mrs. Clinton made it appear that Comey's letter was some kind of underhanded communication only to Republican members of Congress. Both were in response to media questions which seemed far more polite than similar questions Republican or conservative political candidates in scandalous or criminal circumstances.
The first occurred after Mrs. Clinton's one-minute opening statement (video of the full four-minute event is here):
Transcript below:
REPORTER: Have you or any of your advisers heard from Comey or anyone else at the FBI today, and are you concerned at all that these new emails that they said they have found will in any way reveal classified information that you sent or received?
HILLARY CLINTON: No, we have not been contacted by anyone. First we knew about it is I assume when you knew about it, when this letter, sent to Republican members of the House, was released.
Note that Mrs. Clinton didn't answer the "classified documents" portion of the reporter's question.
Team Clinton won't acknowledge the obvious point that the FBI director has an obligation to communicate important matters to Congress. He is under no obligation to communicate with presidential candidates, even those he is investigating, unless he wishes to interview them about the subject investigation. In fact, depending on the circumstances, such a communication might jeopardize the progress of the investigation.
Mrs. Clinton's second partisan reference occurred during her answer to the final question she took. The question concerned whether she had spoken yet with Huma Abedin. She didn't answer that question, but said the following:
Transcript:
HILLARY CLINTON: If they're going to be sending this kind of letter that is only going originally to Republican members of the House, that they need to share whatever facts they claim to have with the American people. And that's what I expect to happen.
Here's the obvious truth. As seen in the full letter, its letter's addressees were the chairmen of four committees in both the House and the Senate:
Yes, they are all Republicans, because Republicans control the Senate and the House. Mrs. Clinton and her team appear to have deliberately decided to leave out the fact that Senators were recipients because of the years-in-the-making, media-driven perception that House Republicans are ruthlessly partisan. Referring only to the House is a way for the supposedly "inevitable" candidate to try to hang on to her partisan base.
The fact is, however, that the letter was also sent (technically "copied," I suppose, but sent nonetheless) to eight others. Their names appear after Comey's signature. Those recipients include four Democratic Party senators and four Democrats in the House:
Only in the hyperpartisan, everything-is-politics world of the left could the sending of a letter to the people you're supposed to send it to, and the sending of a copy of it to the people who are supposed to get copies, be seen as a partisan act.
For Mrs. Clinton to falsely imply twice that Comey's letter is part of some kind of underhanded, effort by only House Republicans is childish, and sadly typical. Her posture is only meant to give American the false impression that she is, yet again, in her fevered mind, the victim of a vast right-wing conspiracy.
That's hardly the case. To make three of what could easily be three dozen relevant points:
- The VRWC didn't make Mrs. Clinton set up an illegal private server in her house, and didn't force her and apparently several members of her staff to illegally use private email accounts for government communications.
- The VRWC didn't make her keep at least 30,000 emails which everyone has acknowledged relate to government business hidden from view for two full years after they were supposed to have been turned over to the government when her term as Secretary of State ended.
- The VRWC didn't make her arbitrarily decide which emails she could delete as supposedly "personal," using only ineffective word-search criteria, and which ones she could turn over.
Naturally, the Associated Press, in a Saturday morning dispatch, ignored Mrs. Clinton's contentions of partisanship. As would also be expected, the eight AP reporters involved in the story didn't focus at all on what Mrs. Clinton and her aide Huma Abedin might have done, particularly how the FBI's discovery of communications between the two or between Abedin and others on a device apparently not included in the supposedly comprehensive list of devices the pair has previously told the FBI they used might affect their legal vulnerability.
Heck no. The AP's report was about how Mrs. Clinton is trying to "quell (the) resurgent email issue," and oozed with bogus sympathy:
Clinton tries to quell resurgent email issue late in race
For more than a year, Hillary Clinton has been a reluctant participant in the email controversy that has dogged her campaign, responding defensively to inquiries — and often only when there's a political imperative to do so.
On Friday, the imperative was clear.
The email issue flared up unexpectedly just over a week from Election Day, threatening Clinton's lead over Republican Donald Trump. The FBI announced it was looking into whether there was classified information on a device belonging to Anthony Weiner, the disgraced ex-congressman who is separated from longtime Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
Clinton stepped in swiftly, holding a brief, hastily arranged news conference in a high school choir room in Des Moines, Iowa. She challenged FBI Director James Comey to release the full details of the new investigation, citing the crucial phase of the White House race.
... The development all but ensures that, even should she win the White House, the Democrat and several of her closest aides would celebrate a victory a under a cloud of investigation.
(Donald) Trump leapt on the FBI's disclosure, accusing Clinton of corruption "on a scale we have never seen before."
... Congressional Republicans have already promised years of investigations into Clinton's private email system.
As Clinton wrapped up her short comments to reporters Friday, she was asked whether she thought the new investigation would sink her campaign.
She walked away, responding only with a hearty laugh.
Concerning the final bolded item, do you guys have quotes (plural) for that? I didn't think so. If you do have any, they're almost certainly framed by how the Clintons have historically dealt with investigations.
The fact is that length of any investigation is largely determined by whether those being investigated choose to cooperate or obstruct. The Clintons and their apparatchiks have virtually always chosen the obstruction option, which is why the related investigations into their activities have invariably taken years (and then, of course, they complain about how long the investigations are). So the real question the AP reporters should be asking is whether Mrs. Clinton whether she will genuinely cooperate or obstruct. But they already know the answer to that question.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
