Tag Archives: e-mails

national news

Jared used personal e-mail for government work? Lock him . . . up?

What’s going on here?

Republicans all over America have been chanting “Lock her up!” in reaction to Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail server when she was secretary of state. They’re still hollering it, although not in the numbers or with the volume they did in 2016 when Clinton was running for president of the United States.

Now there’s this: Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of Donald Trump has been using a private, personal server to send e-mails relating to government business.

More questions arise

Do we start the chant to “Lock him up!”?

The info comes from Abbe Lowell, Kushner’s lawyer, who has told the U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee about Kushner’s use of personal e-mail servers to conduct official government business.

I’m straining to hear something — anything — from the GOP side of the political divide. I’m listening for chants to toss the president’s daughter’s husband into the slammer.

Silence! That’s what I’m hearing.

national security

No chants to ‘Lock her up,’ please

Ivanka Trump has been busted for, that’s right, using her personal e-mail account to convey government policy matters.

Sound familiar? Sure it does. Republican officials and politicians led chants from faithful audiences to “Lock her up!” when the subject was Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former secretary of state who also ran as the Democratic nominee for president in 2016.

I am not going to join in any kind of payback as it regards the president’s daughter, who doubles as a senior policy adviser in the Trump administration. Doing so would expose any of those who bristled at the chants aimed at Clinton to charges of rank hypocrisy.

However, I do expect the new Democrat-controlled House to launch hearings next year into what Ivanka Trump disseminated via her personal e-mail account.

That, I submit, is fair treatment. What mattered for Hillary ought to matter as well for Ivanka.

national news, political news

Enough of the excuses … Hillary lost!

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I am growing weary of the constant blame-gaming that’s going on among those who wanted Hillary Rodham Clinton to become president of the United States.

By all means, I preferred her over the candidate who won. I’ve already stipulated as much — many times! — on this blog.

She didn’t win. She lost. Hillary was thought to be the prohibitive favorite to become the next president. She didn’t get there.

And yet, we keep hearing that FBI James Comey’s 11th-hour letter to Congress about those pesky e-mails doomed Clinton’s campaign. Now we hear that the Russian hackers might have tilted the election in Donald J. Trump’s favor.

On the first matter, there’s nothing anyone can prove about Comey’s last-minute intervention. On the second matter, there ought to be a special commission convened — independent of Congress — to examine what the Russkies did, how they did it and recommend ways to protect us from future hackers. Hey, we convened such a commission after the 9/11 attacks.

Former President Bill Clinton, one of New York’s presidential electors, chimed in today about Comey and the Russians.

A lot of things went wrong with the former president’s wife’s campaign. If anyone needs to take the hickey on this stunning loss, it ought to be folks such as Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and campaign manager Robby Mook.

Hillary Clinton should have put herself miles ahead of Trump by the time Comey’s letter came out. She fell short.

Who gets the blame? Hillary Clinton and her team need to look inward.

national news, political news

Shocking! Trump was kidding about locking Hillary up

GRAND RAPIDS, MI - DECEMBER 9: President-elect Donald Trump waves to the crowd as he arrives onstage at the DeltaPlex Arena, December 9, 2016 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. President-elect Donald Trump is continuing his victory tour across the country. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Donald J. Trump didn’t mean it. He was kidding. He never intended to “lock up” Hillary Rodham Clinton over her use of a personal e-mail server.

Wow! Can you believe it? He said it was a ploy to win votes.

Interesting, yes? I think so.

Now I’m wondering what else the president-elect said just to sway voters to cast their ballots for him.

Does he really intend to build a wall across our southern border? Does he actually intend to ban Muslims from entering the United States of America? The “deportation force” is a joke, too?

Trump has acknowledged already that those hideous things he said about women were for “entertainment” purposes. Gosh, I still haven’t stop laughing. Thanks, Donald, for the hilarity.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-clinton-lock-her-up_us_584b5b53e4b04c8e2bb01274?

This all seems to play into the narrative that developed not long after the election, which is that you can’t take Trump’s statements literally. When he said he knows “more about ISIS than the generals,” we’re supposed to brush it off as — what — just campaign rhetoric? When he called President Obama the “founder of ISIS,” that was meant to draw applause from those yuuuuge rallies?

As for the so-called pledge to toss Hillary Clinton in jail, many of his ardent supporters accepted as the gospel according to Trump. “Lock  her up!” they chanted repeatedly.

Oh, my. We’re going to have to parse the new president’s words with great care … and even greater skepticism.

legal news, national news, political news

Is a presidential pardon out of the question?

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Donald J. Trump said many crazy things while campaigning successfully for the presidency of the United States.

Take, for instance, his statement to Hillary Rodham Clinton that “You’d be in jail” if he were president.

His crowds chanted the “Lock her up!” mantra continually at his rallies. Trump didn’t silence the madness from his followers.

The FBI director, James Comey, concluded in July that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring criminal charges against Clinton over her use of a private e-mail server while she was secretary of state. Then he told Congress 11 days before the election that he found more e-mails that deserved his agency’s attention; eight days after that he said, “Nope. Nothing has changed.”

Trump continued to hammer “crooked Hillary” with accusations that she broke the law.

So, here’s a nutty idea. Would the new president issue a blanket pardon, clearing his opponent of any potential future prosecution?

Trump isn’t saying. Neither is his transition staff.

Hey, this notion has precedent. President Ford granted a pardon for his immediate predecessor,  former President Nixon, a month after Nixon quit the presidency on Aug. 9, 1974, over the Watergate scandal. No criminal charges had been brought against Nixon, yet Ford sought to prevent a further political fracturing that would occur had any prosecution had been allowed to proceed.

It turned out that the pardon opened up a whole new set of fissures.

But, the nation moved on.

Might there be such an action in our nation’s immediate future?

I wouldn’t oppose such an action. How about you?

legal news, national news, political news

FBI boss tries to cover his trail; Hillary breathes more easily

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What? Do you mean to say, Mr. FBI Director, that the letter you released to Congress a few days ago has amounted to a whole lot of nothing? Is that what you’ve said today, sir?

James Comey has sent another letter to Congress, telling members that his agency has pored through the e-mails it recovered regarding Hillary Clinton’s years as secretary of state and has — get a load of this — found that nothing has changed from its conclusion this summer.

The FBI determined that “no reasonable prosecutor” would seek criminal charges against Clinton over the e-mails. Now he’s said the first conclusion will stand.

Oh, but that doesn’t end the story … even though it should.

Comey’s first letter to Congress sent the campaign into serious tumult. It has been the primary reason for Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump’s recent rally in public opinion polls. Trump used the letter to say that Clinton was guilty of corruption, that his campaign had struck the “mother lode,” and that Clinton was involved in the “worst scandal since Watergate.”

The lode has dried up. The “scandal” won’t materialize.

The FBI director has effectively concluded his probe into those e-mails. End of story?

Well, one might hope. Republicans, though, aren’t about to let it go.

national news, political news

Chaotic campaign becomes even more chaotic

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You want chaos on the election trail? Pandemonium in the board room? Shock in our living rooms?

Welcome to Presidential Election 2016, which is heading for what looks like the wildest finish in history. Why, this might even top the 2000 election, where Al Gore won more popular votes than George W. Bush, but lost the presidency because Bush got one more Electoral College vote than he needed.

I’m not going to predict that this campaign will end with that scenario. The grenade that FBI Director James Comey tossed into the middle of this fight has the potential of upsetting everything we thought about the bizarre nature of this bizarre campaign.

He said he’s found more e-mails that might have something to do with Hillary Clinton’s on-going e-mail controversy. We don’t know what’s in them. We don’t even know if she sent them.

Donald Trump calls it the “mother lode.”

I keep hearing two things: (1) The polls are tightening and (2) few voters’ minds have been changed because of what Comey has said.

Are we really and truly going to elect someone — Trump — who has admitted to behaving boorishly? Are we going to elect an individual with a string of failed businesses, lawsuits, allegations of sexual assault leveled against him?

We’re going to do this because the FBI director has inserted himself and his agency into the middle of a presidential campaign while saying virtually nothing of substance about what he might — or might not — have on one of the candidates?

Am I happy with the choices we face? No. I wish the major parties had nominated different candidates for president. We’re stuck, though, with these. We’re left with a choice. Of the two major-party nominees, the choice is clear — to me.

If only we could rid ourselves of the chaos.

national news, political news

Trump has concluded: Hillary’s guilty of everything

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Politics too often enables public figures to say the damnedest things about their opponents.

Donald J. Trump has concluded, therefore, that based on what he has heard about FBI Director James Comey’s letter to Congress — Hillary Rodham Clinton is the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency of the United States.

What does the Republican nominee know? Not a damn thing! What evidence does he have to pre-judge Clinton’s guilt? Nothing at all, man!

Comey has said only that he has some more material to review regarding some missing e-mails. Has he revealed the goods on Clinton? Has he declared any intention to seek an indictment? Has he told the nation anything of substance about what he has uncovered? No to all of it.

Trump, though, is not to be dissuaded by anything resemblance fairness, due process or any presumption of anything but absolute guilt.

He’s called the e-mail controversy a “bigger scandal” than Watergate. Good bleeping grief!

The Trumpkins throughout the country keep insisting that Clinton deserves to be tossed into prison. For what?

Trump the demagogue/liar is ignoring willfully this fact: Comey already has determined that Clinton did not commit any crimes while using her personal e-mail account while serving as secretary of state.

What the FBI director has revealed at the 11th hour of the most miserable presidential campaign in anyone’s memory does not suggest one iota of criminality.

None of that, however, is going to give Donald Trump pause. His response to Comey’s so-called “October surprise” has been nothing short of reprehensible.

International news, national news, political news

Here’s the first and last question for next secretary of state

1 Comment

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Reports indicate that if Hillary Rodham Clinton is elected president next week that she is ready to start vetting a short list of potential secretaries of state.

Vice President Joe Biden reportedly is at the top of that short list.

Biden served six terms in the U.S. Senate before being elected vice president in 2008. He retains many close personal friendships with his former Senate colleagues, given that as VP he served also as president of the Senate.

He’s also a first-cabin foreign policy expert.

So, what do you think would be the first question the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will ask when it begins its hearing to determine whether to confirm Biden — or anyone a President-elect Clinton would nominate?

“Do you intend to use a personal e-mail server to communicate with staffers while serving as the next secretary of state?”

I think I know the answer.

 

legal news

Don’t let the e-mail mystery build, Mr. FBI Director

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The question of the moment — if you’re Hillary Rodham Clinton — is this: Do the recently uncovered e-mails contain damaging information or are they, well, harmless?

Clinton doesn’t know what FBI Director James Comey has uncovered.

Neither do the rest of us. Not me, or you, or Donald J. Trump — Clinton’s opponent in this race for the presidency of the United States.

That, of course, hasn’t stopped Trump from asserting — without a shred of proof, Clinton has committed a crime while using her personal e-mail server while she was secretary of state.

Comey, though, has fed the rumor-mongers among us to pre-suppose and pre-judge what’s in those supposedly “missing” e-mail messages.

And that brings me to the point I’ve made already, but which needs to be made once more.

Comey needs to release the details of those e-mails immediately — if not sooner.

Moreover, it now becomes apparent that U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch — Comey’s boss — said the FBI director’s decision to announce some mysterious findings are not in keeping with Justice Department policy.

This e-mail controversy — and it is not a “scandal” — has become (and pardon the sanitized version of this term) a big-league cluster-fudge.

It is of James Comey’s making. He needs to clean it up.