And he leaves a stain on the reputation of yet another good woman:
Attorney General Loretta Lynch described her Monday meeting with Bill Clinton aboard a private plane as ‘primarily social,’ but some Democrats are struggling to stomach the optics of the attorney general’s meeting with the former president while his wife is under federal investigation — while others are fiercely defending her integrity.
Lynch said she and Clinton talked only of grandchildren, golf, and their respective travels, but the fact that the two spoke privately at all was enough to rekindle concerns about a possible conflict of interest. Republicans have long called into question the ability of a Democratic-led Department of Justice to conduct an independent investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, based inside her Chappaqua, New York, home, during her tenure as secretary of state.
(Politico, June 30, 2016)
“Primarily social”? If you’re going to lie, Loretta, why not say it was entirely social?! After all, it beggars belief that Bill was not on a charm offensive to induce her to clear Hillary, no matter what incriminating evidence DOJ investigators find.
In any event, meeting with him like this makes a mockery of her professional duty to avoid even the appearance of impropriety or conflict. And Loretta Lynch is no starstruck White House intern.
Moreover, Bill has an open and notorious reputation for arranging reckless assignations with women. He is pathologically driven like that; and she knows this. Therefore, she bears greater blame than he for getting herself ensnared in this compromising position.
Of course Hillary will overlook this indiscretion (too). Not least because she accepted and factored long ago that Bill will never stop embarrassing and compromising her (personally and professionally).
Hell, given the infamous blunders he made during her 2008 campaign, he is clearly more of a liability to her political career than Billy Carter was to Jimmy’s … or Roger Clinton was to his. Not to mention that Bill is only the second president in U.S. history to give Congress probable cause to impeach him. All of which should finally stop Washington talking heads from hailing him, in monkey-see-monkey-do fashion, as the greatest political operator of our time.
But Loretta has no choice now but to recuse herself from deciding whether the findings of this investigation warrant federal charges. Her deputy should appoint a career prosecutor to present them before a federal grand jury to decide; and let the chips fall where they may.
This offers the only hope of cleansing her reputation … a little.
__________
UPDATE
Backlash and recusal
July 1
Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch plans to announce on Friday that she will accept whatever recommendation career prosecutors and the F.B.I. director make about whether to bring charges related to Hillary Clinton’s personal email server, a Justice Department official said. Her decision removes the possibility that a political appointee [namely her] will overrule investigators in the case…
[A] private meeting between Ms. Lynch and former President Bill Clinton this week set off a political furor and made the decision all but inevitable.
(New York Times, July 1, 2016)
As I declared above, Loretta really had no choice – not just to cleanse her reputation, but to preserve the integrity of the DOJ.
More to the point, though, her (de facto) recusal destroys whatever faith or hope Hillary had that she would use her influence to prevent some DOJ prosecutor from making a name for himself by indicting her.
Frankly, I would wager good money now that she will be indicted. In which case the DOJ and F.B.I. owe it to the country to bring charges well before Election Day. After all, there is compelling public interest in not turning the Clintons’ congenital mess into a constitutional crisis.
Meanwhile, this might explain why the wizened and wily Bernie has ignored Democratic pleadings to suspend his campaign. He’s lying in wait.
Except that, if Hillary is indicted, the equally wizened and wily Joe (aka Vice President Biden) would like nothing more than for delegates to draft him to run the home stretch for the top job ….
* My original commentary was published yesterday, Thursday, at 12:37 p.m.