Having reached Labor Day the presidential election has now officially started. I wish I could say that the months we have already gone through has just been a bad dream and we don’t really have this race between the two worst people in America. There is at least one clear difference between the two, but first the similarity–both have a Foundation scandal.
I’ve already discussed the Clinton Foundation scandals in great detail, including here and here. Between the email and Foundation scandals, Hillary Clinton has been found to have violated policy with regards to using a home server rather than a government email system, failing to turn over any email for archiving which was sent over personal email, destroying over half the email and falsely claiming it was personal, and failed to disclose all donors to the Clinton Foundation as she agreed prior to her confirmation. She unethically made rulings on multiple occasions regarding parties which contributed to the Foundation and/or made unprecedented payments for speeches to Bill Clinton.
Donald Trump has a Foundation scandal of his own. There are far less stories regarding this as there wasn’t the clear conflict of interest of Donald Trump being in a position to sell influence as he was not in the government. Here’s where we have the difference between the two. Instead of selling influence, Donald Trump used his money to buy influence. As The Atlantic points out, he has even admitted it in the past:
“As a businessman and a very substantial donor to very important people, when you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do,” Trump told The Wall Street Journal in July 2015. “As a businessman, I need that.”
Beyond this difference, selling versus buying influence, Clinton and Trump are very much alike. I’ve cited multiple articles from fact checkers showing Clinton lying about her scandals. Trump is sounding a lot like Clinton when he denies any impropriety in a contribution to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi before her office decided not to investigate Trump University in 2013.
Which do you prefer–the crook who sells influence or the scoundrel who buys influence? That’s the choice we face this year.
