Hilary Clinton has written a book about the presidential election entitled “What Happened.” It was just released days ago. I haven’t read it. But I’ve watched her in a television interview about it. She is letting her feelings show and is being forthright about her losing the presidential election last year. She admits to mistakes she made. She had said previously that her decision to use a private email server was “a bonehead decision.” She says she was devastated by the loss and that her “family, friends, and faith” sustained here in overcoming it.
Mrs. Clinton raises an important question in her book–Why didn’t President Donald Trump, upon his presidential inauguration or soon after, announce that his administration would be seriously investigating possible Russian meddling in our election process? The FBI announced last summer that it had solid evidence that Russian government officials had done just that. Moreover, all of the heads of our eleven intelligence agencies agreed with that FBI assessment.
Yet Donald Trump–both as presidential candidate and now as president–has constantly berated both our intelligence agencies and media. And he has constantly called the FBI’s investigation into possible Russian meddling in our election process “a witch hunt” and a “hoax.” How does he know? He’s no investigator. That’s like a 20-handicapper telling me how to play golf! That kind of talk by the president just makes him look like it certainly did happen and worse–that he was involved in it. Trump now has an attorney who obviously has convinced him to cool it, that is, to quit making those accusations. Political analyst Katy Tur says in her new book, Unbelievable, “without journalists, it’s just propaganda.”
Indeed it is. And its common sense, of which I don’t think Donald Trump has much. But actually, that’s being charitable to him. It looks like he’s doing that berating because he’s such an egotist that he can’t see reality well. That just angers the people working in our intelligence agencies, causing them to want to try all the more to expose Trump if he’s guilty. But it could be worse for Trump–he could be constantly criticizing our intelligence and media to try to change the national conversation and get his electoral base to pressure Congress to end the investigation since he is indeed guilty and he knows it.
Mrs. Clinton use of a private email server had caused the FBI to open an investigation into her emails to see if she had committed a crime. That’s why Donald Trump would stir up his election rallies by yelling “lock her up.” I thought that was so disgraceful for a man running for president to say that. Our Arizona Senator John McCain was right about Trump at a campaign rally here in Phoenix, that Trump was “stirring up the crazies.” There are a lot of things about America electing Donald Trump as president that have me worried about our nation.
All pollsters had Hilary Clinton 5-10% votes ahead of Trump in the election campaign weeks before the election, on November 8. FBI Director James Comey had announced during the summer that the FBI had concluded that Mrs. Clinton was not guilty of committing any crime regarding her use of a private email server and that the FBI had therefore closed the investigation. But on October 27th, Mr. Comey wrote a letter to Congress announcing the FBI had received new information about the case and therefore had reopened it. Obviously, that immediately was publicized. It was a devastating blow to the Clinton campaign.
In February, 2017, days after Donald Trump was inaugurated as president, FBI Director James Comey revealed for the first time that the FBI had had an investigation going on since early last summer into possible Russian meddling in our presidential election. Months later, kn my post on May 4th entitled “Comey Was Wrong,” I said if Comey was going to announce on October 27th, 2016, as he did, that the FBI had reopened the Clinton email server case, in all fairness he also should have announced the FBI’s investigation into this possible Russian meddling. When Comey was asked why he didn’t do that, he said “it was too close to the election.” Baloney! If that’s true, then it was too close to the election for him to announce the FBI’s reopening of the Clinton email server case. Comey was not seeing straight in doing that. Moreover, he revealed that his advisor-associates in the FBI warned him not to do that, saying it was affect the election. They were right.
So, Mrs. Clinton says in her book that of all the things that happened that could have caused her to lose the election, the main one was Comey’s revelation on October 28th of the reopening of the FBI investigation into her emails. She says, “If the election had been held on October 27th, I would have now been the president.” I think she’s right.
She also says in her book that our Electoral College system is antiquated and should be eliminated. I agree. See my post on November 10, 2016, “The Electoral College Is a Farce.”
Former Washington Post newspaper reporter Carl Bernstein, along with his associate Bob Woodward, broke The Watergate story in 1972. President Nixon was lying about the Republican fiasco of breaking into the Democratic headquarters in the big office complex called “The Watergate.” And his biggest crime was lying in covering it up. The whole affair led to Congress beginning impeachment proceedings against him, so he resigned the presidency. I watched the Congressional investigation proceedings on television with much interest. It was such an education about our democratic system of government. And ever since, I have had much respect for Bernstein and Woodward.
Bernstein strongly suspects that members of the Donald Trump presidential election campaign, and possibly Trump himself, are lying about collusion with Russian government officials in efforts to get Trump elected last year. Yesterday, Bernstein said Mrs. Clinton’s book is “admirable” and “introspective.” He said Hilary’s analysis in the book about why she lost the election is “brilliant.” So, Bernstein believes this Trump-Russia influence in our election is much worse than Watergate.
Bernstein said of Hilary Clinton, “she has been the most famous woman in the world for the past 25 years.” But he added that she was not the right person to be the Democratic nominee. I said this in my post on August 8th entitled “Colin Powell Should Have Been President for a Time Like This.” Bernstein explained, “She was in many ways the worst possible candidate to run against Donald Trump.” Even though I thought she won the televised debates with Trump, Bernstein may be right about that. Yet I think she would have done fine as president. Except for the email server and Libya disasters, she did a good as Secretary of State.
I’m no Democrat and certainly not a political liberal. I’ve voted Republican almost my entire life. Yet see my post on May 10, 2017, “The Black House Is Turning Me into a Democrat.” Still, I call them as I see them.
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