Liberal Values Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought

As I discussed once again yesterday, many Democrats are ignoring the serious ethical breaches which have been written about Hillary Clinton, both in the past couple of months and further back, from liberal as well as conservative sources. To a certain degree the right gives her cover as, in addition to the many proven accusations against her raised by the left, there are additional false accusations against her from the right, leading some to falsely conclude that all accusations against Clinton are as bogus as Benghazi. Clinton apologists are now using a rather irrelevant article  in The New York Times to justify ignoring the strong case against Clinton. The article cites actions from the past months by conservative groups, ignoring the fact that many on the left has felt that Clinton is both unethical and too conservative for many years.

A post at The Moderate Voice (where many of my posts are reposted) which cites this article takes on the surface might be called a moderate viewpoint but actually ignores the facts of the matter:

I will wait for the results of impartial, independent investigations on allegations such as “E-Mail Gate” and the Clinton Foundation.

And I will definitely not fall for what the extreme right, or the extreme left, allege about Hillary Clinton.

In actuality, while additional facts will likely continue to be found, all the information to prove Clinton’s ethical misconduct and violation of rules in effect when she was Secretary of State are already in. Criticism of Clinton comes from all parts of the political spectrum, not just the extreme right and left. There is no such thing as an “impartial, independent investigation” to occur on a public official out of office, especially those as powerful as the Clintons. There are no such “independent investigations” of candidates other than from the media. We must go by the well-established facts that we do have to judge whether she is fit to be president. Here is what we do know:

When Hillary Clinton was made Secretary of State there was tremendous concern, from members of both parties, about the conflicts of interest this entails. Two rules were established to attempt to prevent conflicts of interest. The first applied to all cabinet officials after the email scandals of the Bush years (which Clinton included in her attacks on the Bush administration for shredding the Constitution). To increase transparency, rules were established by the Obama administration in 2009 for all email to be archived on government servers. Clinton violated this, and used the private server  to keep information both from Congress and the media. The top Freedom of Information Act official at the Justice Department has stated that Clinton was in violation of the rules and the State Department’s top Freedom of Information Act officer has called her use of a private server unacceptable. An ambassador under Clinton was even fired with failure to abide by rules related to not using private email being cited as a reason by the Inspector General (pdf of report here). Buzzfeed recently obtained email showing that the  top lawyer for the National Archives also expressed concern over Clinton’s use of a private server.

After Clinton’s press conference about the email scandal, news media fact checkers showed ares in which she was lying, especially with her claim of not breaking the rules. AP subsequently also found that her claim about not wanting to use two devices out of convenience did not hold up as she was actually using two devices for email when Secretary of State.

Not only did Clinton fail to abide by the policies in effect, when this became publicly known she destroyed evidence in wiping the server.

The second rule which applied exclusively to Hillary Clinton’s situation was that the contributions to the Clinton Foundation be disclosed. Hillary Clinton agreed to this, but failed to abide by the agreement and did not disclose over a thousand donors. The Foundation also failed to disclose many of these on their tax forms and was  caught lying about this issue.

We also know that Bill Clinton saw an unprecedented increase in payments for giving speeches when Hillary became Secretary of State from organizations and countries which subsequently received favorable intervention from Clinton. His speaking fees jumped from 150,000 to typically 500,000, and as high as 750,000. Contributions to the Clinton Foundation raise similar ethical concerns. This week we also received evidence that Hillary Clinton personally benefited financially.Ezra Klein discussed how this was both unethical and showed poor judgment.

Clinton apologists have argued that there is not evidence of a quid pro quo, but to require this is a higher standard of proof which others are subjected to. Direct evidence of a quid pro quo is rarely obtained, especially after evidence has been destroyed, as Clinton has done. Instead guilt is generally established based upon patterns of behavior, including failing to follow the rules in effect and such transfers of money to a politician from those who have received benefits. Destruction of evidence is typically interpreted to mean that the destroyed evidence is unfavorable to the accused.  Lawrence Lessig, director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, recently wrote:

Even if no deals are made, the influence of special-interest super PACs is a corrupting influence on American democracy. Even without a quid pro quo, the incredible concentration of direct contributions from a tiny fraction of the wealthiest 1 percent of the population is a corrupting ­influence.

Corruption is not just a contract. Corruption is also a kind of economy — an economy of influence that leads any sane soul to the fair belief that private influence has affected public policy. It is for this reason that practically every Democrat has insisted that the court’s Citizens United decision (and its progeny) needs to be reversed. It is this idea that has motivated millions to petition Congress to propose an amendment for that reversal…

That consensus among Democrats has now been shattered by a book by conservative writer Peter Schweizer. In “Clinton Cash,” Schweizer charges Bill and Hillary Clinton with corruption. Not because there is evidence of any particular bribe. Instead, their corruption, Schweizer says, comes from a pattern of behavior: a constant (and, by the end of the book, practically grotesque) story of cash passing from people seeking the government’s favor to either Bill Clinton (and hence Hillary Clinton) or the Clinton Foundation. The rapaciousness alone is enough to give one pause: Seriously, don’t we pay former presidents enough?

Yet all this, the Clintons and their defenders insist, is not corruption because Schweizer has provided no smoking gun. He has offered “no evidence” of a quid pro quo trade.

Welcome to Wonderland: Were the alleged influencers the Koch brothers, with the same kind of pattern charged against them — their channeling support to Republican representatives, those representatives in turn acting in a way that reflected the desires of the Kochs — there would be no doubt that Democrats would rally to attack that influence as Exhibit No. 1 in the case against the corruption of Washington. But apparently now those loyal to the Democratic presidential front-runner will have to be more careful in their criticism. Apparently now the party line must be: Even if someone benefited personally, and enormously, and even if there is a repeated series of victories for those exercising their influence, there’s no corruption unless Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. would see it as corruption — meaning again, no corruption unless a quid pro quo.

Democrats need to think carefully about whether this is really a principle they want to defend — while they insist that we need to amend the Constitution to ban independent contributions and expenditures as corrupt even if no quid pro quo is shown.

Likewise, the Republicans now railing against the Clintons need to recognize just how easy it is for them to see corruption even where no one can show a quid pro quo.

We all should agree that the economy of influence that Washington has become is corrupt, the Supreme Court notwithstanding, and all finally move on to the only important question: What can we do to fix it?

On any fair reading, the pattern of behavior that Schweizer has charged is corruption. If the Clintons are going to defend against it, they need to do more than to cite Chief Justice Roberts. And soon.

David Sirota  has also recently written in Salon about the hypocrisy of Democrats who oppose the Citizens United ruling while giving Hillary Clinton a free pass.

Common Cause has called for an independent audit of the Clinton Foundation. Charity watch dog organizations such as Charity Navigator have placed the Foundation on their watchlist.

Clinton would be receiving this criticism even if conservative groups were not further publicizing her actions. The case against the Clintons is based upon what the Clintons have done–not actions by any conservative group the last couple of months.While we have more information, this is not anything new.  The Clintons have been criticized for similar ethical problems for many years by both liberal and nonpartisan organizations concerned with ethics and transparency in government.  For example, The Sunlight Foundation has archived an article from The New York Times criticizing Hillary Clinton for similar ethical violations in 2009.

Liberals have objected to Clinton’s conservative views, along with her ethical violations, during the 2008 campaign and earlier. Hillary Clinton is essentially a Joe Lieberman Democrat on foreign policy, civil liberties, and social issues, and many liberals have felt for a long time that she should be ostracized by Democrats as Lieberman ultimately was. I discussed how her hawkish foreign policy views were unacceptable to the left in this post from August 2014, along with past posts. I pointed out her long history of poor judgment on policy issues in this post from June 2014, citing an article from The National Journal. I recently cited an article from Mother Jones written in 2007 on Clinton’s cultural conservatism, including her poor record regarding separation of church and state. Clinton has received similar criticism from liberals, and those concerned about ethics in government, going back much longer. Criticism of Clinton from the left has nothing to do with actions from conservatives.