Tea at Trianon: Nixon, Hillary, and Wikileaks

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, November 4, 2016

Nixon, Hillary, and Wikileaks

From The Federalist:

On July 30, 1974, Nixon was forced to turn over a series of taped recordings related to numerous meetings and conversations conducted at the White House. These tapes included enough damaging evidence to put the final nail in the coffin on Nixon’s administration. It was also revealed that 18.5 minutes of tape had been erased. The furor that erupted from all corners, including the media, was enormous. It was considered one of the most reprehensible single acts in the history of American politics. Unforgivable, unconscionable, disgusting—all of those outcries were fair and appropriate.

But this is no longer 1974, and we are no longer talking about Richard Nixon. It is 2016, and we are talking about Hillary Clinton. Her staff and their accomplices have erased some 33,000 emails; they have had hard drives acid-washed; they have crushed multiple cell phones with hammers; with the help of the FBI, they have had laptops destroyed. The reaction to all of this from our esteemed mainstream media? “She’s answered all of these questions. It’s time to move on.”

The investigative journalism big media outlets employed in the ’70s to expose widespread political corruption and deceit is now being used to uncover the past moral transgressions of a flawed Republican candidate. It’s juicy stuff indeed that certainly warrants publication if the facts support the allegations. But to use this tabloid-worthy information to at least partly deflect from an already overwhelming amount of damaging evidence, as verified by the actual words of the perpetrators themselves, is—how should I say it—deplorable.

The mainstream media has done an excellent job thus far in suppressing the real case against Hillary Clinton. But as the avalanche of evidence against her continues to mount, the truth will overwhelm their effort to limit the reporting. By that time, even they will be forced to abandon the charade. The way things stand right now, it might be too late to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House, but, as Richard Nixon learned back in 1974, it will never be too late to show her the door. (Read more.)

More commentary from PJB:

After posting Friday’s column, “A Presidency from Hell,” about the investigations a President Hillary Clinton would face, by afternoon it was clear I had understated the gravity of the situation. Networks exploded with news that FBI Director James Comey had informed Congress he was reopening the investigation into Clinton’s email scandal, which he had said in July had been concluded. “Bombshell” declared Carl Bernstein. The stock market tumbled. “October surprise!” came the cry. The only explanation, it seemed, was that the FBI had uncovered new information that could lead to a possible indictment of the former secretary of state, who by then could be the president of the United States.

By Sunday, we knew the source of the eruption. Huma Abedin, Clinton’s top aide, sent thousands of emails to the private laptop she shared with husband Anthony Weiner, a.k.a. Carlos Danger, who is under FBI investigation for allegedly sexting with a 15-year-old girl. The Weiner-Abedin laptop contains 650,000 emails. The FBI has not yet reviewed Abedin’s emails, and they could turn out to be duplicates of those the FBI has already seen, benign, or not relevant to the investigation of Clinton.

But it does appear that Abedin misled the FBI when she told them all communications devices containing State Department work product were turned over to State when she departed in 2013. Clinton, understandably, was stunned and outraged by Comey’s letter. For it casts a cloud of suspicion over her candidacy by raising the possibility that the FBI director could reverse his decision of July, and recommend her prosecution. By Monday, Oct. 31, new problems had arisen, some potentially crippling or possibly lethal to a Clinton presidency. Reporters have unearthed a near-mutiny inside the FBI over the decision to shut down the investigation of the Clinton email scandal and Comey’s recommendation of no prosecution.

Andrew McCabe, No. 2 at the FBI, has come under anonymous fire from inside the bureau as one of those most reluctant to pursue aggressively any investigations of the Clintons. McCabe’s wife, in a 2015 state senate race in Virginia, received $475,000 in PAC contributions from Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime friend and major fundraiser for Bill and Hillary Clinton. After the Senate race that McCabe’s wife lost, he was promoted from No. 3 at the FBI to No. 2, where he has far more influence over decisions to investigate and recommend prosecution. Justice Department higher-ups under Attorney General Loretta Lynch apparently disagreed with Comey notifying Congress, and the nation, to new developments in the email scandal. Yet Comey had given his word to Congress that he would do so.

In the Southern District of New York, which has jurisdiction over the Weiner sexting investigation, FBI agents have reportedly been blocked from opening an investigation into charges of corruption in the Clinton Foundation. This follows revelations that corporate chiefs and foreign rulers and regimes, hit up for contributions to the Clinton Foundation, were then urged by an ex-Clinton aide to provide six-figure speaking fees for Bill Clinton. This follows reports the Clinton Foundation took contributions for victims of natural disasters, and awarded multimillion-dollar contracts to contributors to do the work. Still unanswered is what Bill Clinton and Attorney General Lynch discussed during that 30-minute meeting on the Phoenix tarmac, prior to the FBI and Justice Department decision not to indict Hillary Clinton.

The stench of corruption is reaching Bhopal dimensions.

What appears about to happen seems inevitable and predictable.

If Hillary Clinton is elected, the email scandal, the pay-for-play scandal involving the Clinton Foundation, “Bill Clinton, Inc.,” the truthfulness of her testimony, and reports of Clinton-paid dirty tricksters engaging in brownshirt tactics at Trump rallies, are all going to be investigated more thoroughly by the FBI. And if Clinton is president, there is no way her Justice Department can investigate the Clinton scandals, any more than this city in the early 1970s would entrust an investigation into Watergate to the Nixon Justice Department. (Read more.)