On Liberty Watch

During the Presidential campaign Donald Trump suggested that he would wait to see the results before committing to support them ahead of time. This was a fairly bone-headed move, and it provoked predictable cries of outrage. Two complaints stood out in particular. First, that Trump was engaged in undermining “our democracy” and, second, that he was setting the stage to de-legitimate Hillary Clinton’s Administration after her inevitable election.

As it turns out Hillary Clinton’s election was not so inevitable after all. And there are throngs of protesters, and some rioters, in the streets decrying Trump’s election. Hillary Clinton has just recently blamed her election loss on James Comey for bringing up the e-mails again 11 days before the election. We are certainly entitled to wonder just how a continuing series of street protests, let alone rioting, is supposed to strengthen democracy. Or why James Comey is responsible for Hillary Clinton having installed an e-mail server in her basement.

About Those Campaign Promises

We are about to hear the sound of breaking glass as Donald Trump begins tossing campaign promises through the window. This may actually be a fairly good sign since so much of what he promised is plainly preposterous. There is The Wall of course, and there is trade protectionism. But some of the promises, particularly simplifying the tax code, reducing regulation, and getting rid of Obamacare are good policy.

Trump is caught on the horns of a dilemma though. The grab bag of policy proposals that led to his victory was fashioned to gain the support of non-college educated working class voters who ordinarily vote Democratic. But some key proposals (like trade protectionism) are an anathema to the Republican Party. Nor are Congressional Republicans likely to look kindly at spending $ 1 trillion for infrastructure, although that could change depending on how it is conceived and financed.

It is very easy to promise everything to everybody. The hard part is delivering, especially with an unstable coalition. To govern is to choose. Now Mr. Trump is going to have to make actual choices.

A Pardon for Hillary Clinton?

It is crystal clear that notwithstanding James Comey’s contortions, Hillary Clinton violated the law in her treatment of classified information. That presents a problem. On the one hand, it would be unseemly for an incoming Administration to prosecute a political adversary, particularly after the electorate has held her politically accountable. On the other hand, if the rule of law is to mean something, it requires that the law be enforced without favoritism.

A better solution would be a pardon from President Obama that implicitly acknowledges her violation, but removes the threat of criminal liability for mistreating classified data.

JFB

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Before the election there were dark warnings of the possibility of violence by Trump supporters in the event of a Clinton victory. Well, we are getting the violence, but it seems to be coming from Trump opponents, although it must be said that it can no way be attributed to Hillary Clinton who was quite gracious in her concession speech the following morning.

Republicans ought to think about waiting a bit before popping the champagne corks. President-elect Donald Trump is likely to propose an infrastructure program with a price tag in the vicinity of $1 trillion dollars. The Trump proposal may wind up looking a lot like the program Obama signed into law in 2009 that did little to no good. And there is that matter of where that $1 trillion is going to come from. The accumulated debt already on the books is now $20 trillion and headed upwards. And that doesn’t count the present value of unfunded entitlements under current law.

On the other hand Obamacare is almost certainly going to be dismantled and replaced with something more market friendly. We can expect an effort to inject competition into the health care finance system by allowing insurance companies so sell across state lines. That would be all to the good. It would eliminate lots of bureaucracy and facilitate efficiency gains by enlarging risk pools. Perhaps they will take up the issue of tort reform in an effort to reduce the practice of defensive medicine.

Dodd-Frank will come in for a significant overhaul. And there may be an effort to resurrect some form of Glass-Stiegel, which would separate commercial and investment banking.

Early on we can expect Trump to nominate a replacement for Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. With respect to the nominee, there are two questions lurking not very far in the background. First, will Trump’s nominee come from the list the Heritage Foundation drew up for him early on in the campaign? Second, will Chuck Schumer, the presumed minority leader, try to mount a filibuster? Or will he hold his firepower to see if Trump will get a chance to tip the balance of the Court if one of the more liberal Justices steps down?

Personnel is policy so we should be able to get a sense of the broad outlines of what a Trump administration would look like after he makes a few announcements for key cabinet and staff positions.

JFB

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There should be no doubt that one of the more inauspicious Presidential contests in recent history produced an earthquake. Donald Trump, a businessman with no political experience and little policy knowledge, managed to win the Republican Presidential nomination and then the White House by running as an outsider. In so doing he has shaken up the leadership of both the Republican and Democratic Parties.

Trump carried states Republicans haven’t won in decades. They include Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa and (apparently) Michigan. In short, the blue wall in the rust belt crumbled. And it crumbled for a reason.

These are the states that elites refer to as “fly over territory”. And they are in revolt. Citizens in those states are tired of the relentless condescension heaped on them by political, media and financial elites. These citizens see themselves, their values and their culture as being under siege. Theirs is an insurgency fed by slow economic growth and social engineering that violates their sense of fairness. In short, they look very much like the 1980s Reagan Democrats of Macomb county Michigan.

So when Trump posed the question “What do you have to lose” they decided to take the leap, more out of desperation than hope.

Let’s not kid ourselves. As Lloyd Benston would say, Donald J Trump is no Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan was a two-term Governor of California, the nation’s largest state. Ronald Reagan had a core set of beliefs he carried with him throughout his political career. They included a belief in American exceptionalism; a determination to push back against a communism many saw as ascendant, and a commitment to liberty and free markets. Reagan was inclusive, an optimist and had no use for crony capitalism. And Reagan unambiguously promoted clear policies that were consistent with his beliefs.

It is not clear if Donald Trump has any core beliefs, much less a thought out political agenda. Speaker Paul Ryan has one that is ready to go. The real question is whether Ryan and Congressional Republicans are going to be able to get Trump to adopt and champion that policy agenda. Or whether Trump actually intends to fight to build his silly wall and take apart the global trading system to boot. Let’s hope it turns out to be the former, not the latter.

JFB

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It looks like PJ O’Rourke may have had a point when he said “Don’t vote: It just encourages the bastards”.

Write-in Votes
The Washington Post has a very helpful map illustrating the ease or difficulty of write-in votes by state. See the story at this link.

Get a Life
A music critic has taken to slamming the Beach Boys for their “Beach Privilege”. Here is the story at National Review.

The Clinton Foundation
The Daily Mail has a front-page story that claims the FBI has an “avalanche” of evidence of corruption at the Clinton Foundation, but that the Justice Department is holding back the FBI investigation.

Ben Sasse for President
This writer is going to write-in Ben Sasse for President. Hopes are not high.

JFB

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Not Unprecedented

James Comey is about to get the Ken Starr treatment. The old saw has it that when the facts are against you, argue the law; when the law is against you, argue the facts; when they are both against you, attack the prosecutor. That’s where we are now in the Clinton e-mail saga. The Clinton machine is gearing up for a ferocious assault on FBI Director Comey designed to change the subject from her e-mails to Justice Department protocols.

In what the New York Times describes as a coordinated attack by Hillary Clinton and her allies, Mrs. Clinton assailed Mr. Comey’s decision to notify Congress of his decision to re-open the e-mail investigation as “unprecedented” and “troubling”. If I were Mrs. Clinton and I continuously lied about my e-mail server I would be troubled too. But Comey’s action is hardly unprecedented.

In July of 2008 Alaska’s senior Senator, Ted Stevens, a Republican, was indicted by the Justice Department on corruption charges. He was subsequently convicted on October 28, 2008, just days before the election. He lost his re-election bid by a narrow margin.

The story doesn’t end there. Attorney General Eric Holder moved to have the verdict set aside in 2009 after an investigation found that the investigation and prosecution of Stevens “…were permeated by the systematic concealment of significant exculpatory evidence which would have independently corroborated Senator Stevens’s defense and his testimony, and seriously damaged the testimony and credibility of the government’s key witness”.

And then there is the Presidential election of 1992. Larry Walsh, the Special Prosecutor in the Iran-Contra affair, abused his power when re-indicted former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger on October 30, the Friday before the Presidential election. There was no reason for Walsh to have taken such a step except to influence the Presidential election, which it almost certainly did, in favor of Bill Clinton.

Somehow or other I don’t remember the Clinton’s complaining about that one.

About Those Protocols

Note the irony. Hillary Clinton breached every protocol known to mankind, or at least the State Department, when she set up her private e-mail server and when she mixed Clinton Foundation business with State Department business. Not to mention the impropriety of Bill Clinton meeting privately with Attorney General Loretta Lynch in the back of an airplane shortly before the decision not to prosecute Mrs. Clinton.

And now she and her sycophants are complaining about Comey not adhering to protocol. That is rather amusing, n’est pas?

It is all part of the same old story. The Clinton’s are essentially lawless; they play by their own rules, which is to say that for them—there are no rules. Even down to securing building permits, as it turns out. Sunday’s New York Times describes how the Clinton’s just go ahead and build away without bothering to secure the necessary permits. So it is in matters big and small.

The Upshot

It is true that when James Comey wrote to Congress to inform them of the latest developments in the e-mail saga he probably violated policy and guidelines. Comey has been grandstanding like this for years. As the Clinton’s would say, nothing new to see here.

According to Justice guidelines, officials are supposed to refrain from taking actions that might influence election outcomes. But no matter what he did, either by commission or omission Comey’s actions could influence this year’s election. Even if he had chosen to stay silent, the story probably would have leaked anyway. And it is hard to take complaints about protocol violations seriously from people who had no problem with Bill Clinton meeting with Loretta Lynch privately in the back of an airplane while Hillary was the subject of an ongoing investigation. But that is all inside baseball.

What really matters is the heart of the story. Once again, the Clinton operation has been shown to be untruthful. More to the point there is the ongoing damage to fundamental institutions that seems to follow the Clinton’s everywhere they go. After staining State and Justice, Hillary Clinton is now attacking the FBI in an effort to destroy its institutional credibility and that of its Director in order to salvage her Presidential quest. That, apparently, is her idea of stewardship.

If history is any guide, we can expect more bombshells in the days ahead. Strap in.

JFB

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Another Day, Another Bombshell

Only eleven days before the election FBI Director James Comey has sent a letter to Congress effectively re-opening the Bureau’s probe into Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail server. The proximate cause was the discovery of additional Clinton e-mails “pertinent to the investigation” from an unrelated case.

It appears that the unrelated case is that of Anthony Weiner, former Congressman and estranged husband of Huma Abedin, a top aide of Hillary Clinton. The FBI found e-mails pertinent to the Clinton case on one of Weiner’s computers. According to The New York Times, a senior law enforcement official said that “tens of thousands” of e-mails belonging to Abedin were on Weiner’s laptop. Law enforcement indicated it didn’t know if any were duplicates of e-mails discovered earlier.

Not surprisingly these developments produced wall-to-wall news coverage, giving the faltering Trump campaign a shot in the arm while inflicting damage on Clinton in what was already a terrible week for her. The Comey letter comes on top of the news released by the Obama Administration that Obamacare premiums on average were slated to rise about 25% before subsidies. In addition there was a constant stream of Wikileaks revealing tension in the Clinton campaign over her email scandals.

Answering her own question about why Clinton tried to keep her e-mail arrangement secret, close advisor Neera Tanden who described the e-mails as a “Cheryl [Mills] special”, said: “I guess I know the answer. They wanted to get away with it.”

For her part Hillary Clinton reverted to form. She intimated that Comey sent his now famous letter only to Republicans. He didn’t. It was addressed to the Republican Chairs and Democratic Ranking Members of the relevant committees. Clinton also demanded that the FBI turn over the information to the public, which she knows the FBI is not going to do.

It is also worth paying attention to Secretary Clinton’s comment noting that millions of people have voted already. Which is to say that is a textbook example of why early voting schemes are a really bad idea.

Speculation is Now Over the Top

There is now rampant speculation as to why Comey decided to continue with the investigation, and to make that fact public. Carl Bernstein, of Watergate fame, claims there is a bombshell of a story in the newly discovered e-mails. He said

“We don’t know what this means yet except that it’s a real bombshell. And it is unthinkable that the Director of the FBI would take this action lightly, that he would put this letter forth to the Congress of the United States saying there is more information out there about classified e-mails and call it to the attention of congress unless it was something requiring serious investigation.”

Perhaps.

Then again there is also the possibility that Comey was simply getting ahead of career FBI personnel who were about to leak the story anyway.

What Was Comey Thinking?

The better possibility is that the FBI was simply trapped by it’s own incompetence and had no choice. Here we have a situation in which it is reported that there are tens of thousands of Huma Abedin’s e-mails floating around on non-government servers, including her estranged husband’s laptop. How could the FBI possibly spend over a year investigating Hillary Clinton’s e-mail set up and be oblivious to all these e-mails in the possession of her top aide and her top aide’s husband? Didn’t they question Huma Abedin as part of the investigation? If not, why not? If so, how could they not have inquired about Abedin’s e-mails? Or did Abedin have some sort of immunity deal? Let’s not forget that as part of Cheryl Mills’s immunity deal, the FBI agreed to destroy her laptop. 

Let’s also remember Comey’s rationale for jumping in to violate all protocols by announcing on television that he was not going to recommend prosecuting Clinton, thereby short-circuiting the process. In July he said: “Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information,” (emphasis added).

So Comey incorporated what lawyers refer to as “specific intent” as a requirement for prosecution even though (a) it is not part of the relevant statute and (b) it makes no sense to require intent when gross negligence is the evidentiary threshold specified in the statute, which it is in this case. You don’t intend to be negligent; you simply are negligent. Unless for some reason  the FBI is investigating to see if there is evidence of specific intent in the new e-mails this is about as pointless as it gets, unless it involves some other area of malfeasance. For example, that could include evidence of a quid-pro-quo relating to the Clinton Foundation and government policy. With the Clinton’s that is always a very real possibility. Let’s face reality; it is a near certainty that a Hillary Clinton Presidency would bring with it unending scandal.

In the end, it is reasonable to assume that this whole situation stems from FBI incompetence combined with Clintonian corruption. Which is to say, same old, same old.

JFB

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Is A Tie Still Possible ?

Interestingly enough, the polls are starting to tighten even though Trump has had probably the worst Presidential campaign month in modern history. To some extent this is to be expected. In the waning moments of a Presidential campaign undecided but party affiliated voters start to head home. This favors Trump because has had far more problems with Republicans than Clinton has had with Democrats.

But the odds still strongly favor Clinton. Trump would have to win all the toss-up states and flip New Hampshire to win. If he did that, but lost Utah to Evan McMullin in Utah, the race would go to the House. Very unlikely, but still possible.

Chris Smith: Hardly a Profile in Courage

Chris Smith, a Republican Congressman from New Jersey’s 4^th Congressional District and senior member of New Jersey’s delegation is running for re-election. He has been endorsed by the Asbury Park Press, and according to his campaign website he is “tied for second” out of all 435 current Members of the House in authoring bills that have been signed into law. There are those of us who would rather see Congress spend more time repealing laws instead of passing new ones.

According to The Auditor | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com, Smith has taken “a leadership role” in helping to elect Donald Trump President. Smith’s re-election slogan is “A Leader We Can Trust.”

Trust to do what, exactly?

Smith has a reasonably safe seat that he is intent on keeping. Even if it means actively supporting Donald J Trump. That just might be a bridge too far.

Bill Clinton Inc.

The Washington Post has today published a front-page story based on the latest Wikileaks dump of John Podesta e-mails. It details how the Clinton’s used their foundation as a conduit for enriching themselves. In a classic shakedown operation the Foundation’s fundraisers not only raised lots of money from large multi-national corporations while Hillary Clinton served as Secretary of State, they also solicited money for Bill Clinton personally. The Washington Post delicately refers to the arrangement as the “intersection of charity and personal income.”

Details of the arrangement are outlined in a memo written by former Clinton aide and confidante Doug Band, who later referred to the operation as “Bill Clinton Inc.” Essentially what it boils down to is this. Large potential contributors were invited to buy their way into some elbow rubbing by making contributions to the Clinton Global Initiative and to Bill Clinton personally. The Clinton’s managed to amass well over $100 million this way.

Democrats who continue to (justifiably) link Republican candidates to Donald Trump’s outlandish behavior tend to be reticent about all this, except to try to change the subject.

And while we are still on the subject, is there anybody left in the world who actually believes that Hillary Clinton’s destroyed e-mails contained nothing more than wedding plans and Yoga routines? Is there anybody who actually believes the hacked e-mails are not authentic? Is there anybody who doesn’t believe that Hillary and Bill Clinton are corrupt on a heretofore unimaginable scale?

Just checking.

Be prepared for four more years of never-ending Clinton sleaze.

JFB

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