Tag Archives: e-mail

Memo to former president: Stay away from the action

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Bill Clinton hasn’t blown his wife’s presidential candidacy apart.

But, oh man, he has stepped right into the middle of a place where he didn’t belong.

For that matter, the U.S. attorney general — Loretta Lynch — didn’t help matters one bit by agreeing to a brief, allegedly strictly “social” chat with the 42nd president of the United States.

The ex-POTUS and the AG met recently aboard Lynch’s airplane at Phoenix’s airport. They had a few laughs and chatted each other up about this and/or that.

But the ex-president has handed Republican candidate Donald J. Trump a gold-plated gift in the form of ammo to fire at Hillary Rodham Clinton. The ammo well might include accusations that her husband sought to “influence” an FBI investigation into that nagging e-mail controversy … the one involving Hillary Clinton’s use of her private e-mail account to send and receive State Department messages while she ran that huge federal agency.

The FBI is probing the matter and is expected to interview Democratic presidential nominee-in-waiting Hillary Clinton soon, presumably to get some answers to the Big Question: Did she compromise national security while using that e-mail service?

Lynch said immediately she would accept whatever recommendation the FBI makes regarding Hillary Clinton’s liability in this matter. She has all but recused herself from the investigation, even though the Justice Department still oversees the FBI and that FBI Director James Comey is her direct subordinate.

As for the former president, he needs to take his political antennae into whatever shop there is to fix it.

Until then, he needs to keep as low a profile as possible.

This e-mail mess is muddy enough as it is. The former president needs to — how do I say this clearly? — stay far, far away from it.

Bill Clinton chats up AG Loretta Lynch … oops

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Many of us always have thought that former President Bill Clinton’s political instincts were second to none.

He knows the importance of “optics,” and of timing, and of  perception. Isn’t that right?

Apparently not.

President Clinton and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch happened to be at an airport in Phoenix. What, then, did the former president do? He boarded the AG’s airplane to just, oh, chat her up.

They reportedly exchanged small talk. Clinton wanted to talk about his grandchildren. Lynch and her husband just talked about small stuff.

What’s wrong with that?

Everything!

You see, the FBI — which is an arm of the Attorney General’s Office — is investigating whether Hillary Clinton violated federal law when she used her private e-mail account while she was serving as secretary of state.

Why is it so wrong for Bill Clinton to meet privately with Loretta Lynch? Because it sends out a message that Bill and Hillary Clinton don’t play by the same rules as everyone else. It feeds a longtime narrative that the Clintons’ critics have been saying since Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992.

Lynch said she and Clinton did not discuss the FBI probe into Hillary Clinton’s e-mail matter. She said the former president never brought it up and neither did she.

Hillary Clinton’s Democratic presidential campaign, though, has yet to speak about the meeting.

There had better be some explanation offered … and soon.