A Vast Criminal Enterprise

It's All Over, Rover

This blog has been scathing towards the US Presidential Pretender--Donald Trump.  However, we also need to go on record with respect to Hillary Clinton.  She, in the long storied history of US Presidents, would be the worst, exceeding some rather obnoxious competitors.  

Why do we say this?  Because she and her husband are reflexively corrupt.  We are not speaking here of a dalliance, or having a shady side which at times shows.  Rather we are alleging that Mrs Clinton and her husband have sought public office for private gain.  Systematically. Deliberately. Moreover, in order to succeed at larceny, Clinton has thought nothing of putting the Republic at risk, what with her illegal, private e-mail servers now hacked and available.  She is entitled to what she is entitled.

The corruption showed up long before husband, William Clinton was elected Governor of Arkansas.  Here is Angelo Codevilla's account, written towards the end of Clinton's presidency, when he was surrounded by salacious scandals:

The flood of accusations and denials that surround President Clinton's financial dealings have shed much light on the relationship between power and wealth in the state of Arkansas, where the power of business has long been as strong as it is now becoming in the rest of America.  The essence of the story is that Tyson Foods, the state's largest poultry processor and several banks and savings and loans had special relationships with the state's first family, from which the first family gained financially.

There is no record of Tyson, whose chief counsel was instrumental in multiplying the first lady's investments, having had any problem with the state's environmental regulators.  Nor did Madison Savings and Loan, whose president paid the governor's personal campaign debts, have any problems with the state's banking examiner, appointed by the governor.  The fact that the savings and loan was represented by the governor's wife (at a high consulting fee) to the governor's appointee may have helped.  [Angelo Codevilla, The Character of Nations: How Politics Makes and Breaks Prosperity, Family, and Civility (New York: Basic Books, 1997),  p. 241f.] 

The Clinton's modus operandi in their lust for money and wealth has continued unabated over the years, and has now at the stage where their corruption is open, obvious, blatant--and accepted by the Republic as the norm.

At the centre of Shelob's Lair is the Clinton Foundation--set up when Bill left the White House because, by his wife's recent claim, they left the Presidency penniless.  (If you believe that, dear reader, we have a bridge you may like to buy.)  But the Clinton's knew they were running out of time and opportunities for corruption on the scale to which they aspired were lessening as they aged.  Hillary, then Senator for New York, had a future chance for the White House.  But, in the meantime the grasping and the credulous could be filched by these two latter day Thenardiers.  The Clinton Foundation, at the front door a charity, but inside a place to collect money for the Clinton's, received numerous donations from the corrupt around the world seeking influence and power in the United States.

When Hillary became Secretary of State under President Obama, things started to move up into the big time.  The Clinton Foundation became a receptacle for bribes (there is no other way to put it) by which the rich and powerful around the world sought influence within Washington.  Clinton was happy to oblige.  This arrangement drove Clinton to set up her own private e-mail so that she could arrange to collect the bribes and facilitate the money grubbing.

Charles Krauthamer, writing in the National Review, calls it Clinton's "Constellation of Scandals".

The foundation is a massive family enterprise disguised as a charity, an opaque and elaborate mechanism for sucking money from the rich and the tyrannous to be channeled to Clinton Inc. Its purpose is to maintain the Clintons’ lifestyle (offices, travel, accommodations, etc.), secure profitable connections, produce favorable publicity, and reliably employ a vast entourage of retainers, ready to serve today and at the coming Clinton Restoration.

Now we learn how the whole machine operated. Two weeks ago, e-mails began dribbling out showing foundation officials contacting State Department counterparts to ask favors for foundation “friends.” Say, a meeting with the State Department’s “substance person” on Lebanon for one particularly generous Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire.

Big deal, said the Clinton defenders. Low-level stuff. No involvement of the secretary herself. Until — drip, drip — the next batch revealed foundation requests for face time with the secretary herself. Such as one from the crown prince of Bahrain.  To be sure, Bahrain, home of the Fifth Fleet, is an important Persian Gulf ally. Its crown prince shouldn’t have to go through a foundation — to which his government donated at least $50,000 — to get to the secretary. The fact that he did is telling.

Now, a further drip: The Associated Press found that over half the private interests who were granted phone or personal contact with Secretary Clinton — 85 of 154 — were donors to the foundation. Total contributions? As much as $156 million.

Current Clinton response? There was no quid pro quo. . . .  On the face of it, it’s rather odd that a visible quid pro quo is the bright line for malfeasance. Anything short of that — the country is awash with political money that buys access — is deemed acceptable. As Donald Trump says of his own donation-giving days, “when I need something from them . . . I call them, they are there for me.” This is considered routine and unremarkable.  It’s not until a Rolex shows up on your wrist that you get indicted. Or you are found to have dangled a Senate appointment for cash. Then, like Rod Blagojevich, you go to jail. (He got 14 years.)

The United States Establishment has become so used to this sort of thing--not just from the Clintons, who are past masters at it--but from so many, that it barely warrants a shrug.  The Clinton's are too big to fail, too big to be indicted.  They have too many complicit skeletons in the closet they could parade if the system turned on them.  And the Democractic Party is up to its eyebrows in the slime and corruption--so much so, that it overwhelmingly endorsed Hillary as its candidate for president of the Republic--knowing  who and what she is.

The grasping Thenardiers are about to return to the White House.  The Republic will celebrate them as "Old Friends"--which they are.  The vast corrupted crowd of businesses, influence peddlars, bureaucrats, politicians, bribers and corrupters will doubtless raise many a toast to the new President and her eminence grise of a husband.  "After all, they are two of us."