The problem with being Hillary

Undecided and independent voters are called upon to assess whether statements made by Donald Trump that may have irritated or offended them are of equal or greater gravitas than actions taken by Hillary Clinton in public office. While Trump’s “counterpunches” land hard on those he “hits” and offend many sensitive to their implications, they have never placed in peril American intelligence operatives or methods; have never resulted in the death of Americans overseas; have never misled the American public concerning the actions of terrorist enemies of the United States; and have not placed the most vital secrets of this nation at risk. That horrible history is the unique legacy of Hillary Clinton in public service. Viewed fairly and impartially, nothing Donald Trump has said or done comes close to equaling the dire consequences to our nation that stem from what Hillary Clinton has said and done.

In short, while one of the chief pro-Clinton partisans, President Obama, calls Donald Trump “unfit” to serve as President, the fact is that Donald Trump has done nothing that would constitute a basis for legal disqualification, but the same cannot be said of Hillary Clinton. Indeed, Hillary Clinton is directly responsible for a failure to take action in response to pleas from Ambassador Christopher and his fellow Americans serving in Benghazi, a gross dereliction of duty that resulted in the deaths of those Americans.

She is also responsible, while serving as Secretary of State, for lying to the families of those lost to this act of terror, stating to them that the event was the result of a spontaneous uprising to an anti-Islamic video while telling her daughter shortly before that the Benghazi attack was in fact the result of an act of terror. She is responsible for violating State Department regulations and the Espionage Act by having all email correspondence that she received while serving as Secretary of State delivered to her unsecure private email servers and blackberries, acts that violated regulations defining secure communication channels for Espionage Act compliance purposes, and placing at risk, for the sake of her own convenience, the lives of American intelligence operatives and exposing their methods to risk of hacks.

Add to the foregoing Hillary Clinton’s repeated false statements to the American people (from her lies about the source of the Benghazi attack to her lies denying receipt of classified information to her private server to her lies to the families of the Americans slain by terrorists in Benghazi) and we have a consistent pattern of deceit and obfuscation in public office. While we do not yet have a final determination on probes into the connection between donations to the Clinton Foundation, payments to her husband for speaking engagements overseas, and her actions taken while serving as Secretary of State, the evidence revealed to date, including the employment of State Department employees by the Foundation, reveal at a minimum the appearance of impropriety and at a maximum State Department favors for those who paid hefty sums.

Are we to believe that a person who has been engaged throughout her public career in this kind of reprehensible conduct will spontaneously change and be converted to honesty? Are we to place no stock in the direct email evidence of dishonest tactics in her campaign against Sanders, in her underhanded dealings with the DNC related to Sanders, and in her most recent statements in response to Fox News’s Chris Wallace? A pattern created over thirty years up to the present is not likely to change over the course of four or eight years.

By contrast, some think Trump’s statements are, on occasion, offensive, but none of his statements rises to the level of acts that imperil national security, sacrifice human lives, or violate federal law. Consequently, while we may objectively say, with ample evidence, that Hillary Clinton is indeed unfit to serve as President of the United States; we may not say that, objectively, of Trump. Those, like the President, who contend that Trump is unfit are casting aspersion without requisite fact. Between Clinton and Trump, Clinton alone holds the record for acts of public corruption. That fact ought to weigh heavily on the minds of undecideds and independents who plan to vote in November.