Corruption: Justice Department, State Department, Clinton Foundation, etc.

Stephen Kershnar

The System is Rotten

Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer

October 31, 2016

This election makes it clear that the American political system is corrupt. The corrupt and, often, criminal actors are (or were) in high positions in the Justice Department, FBI, State Department, Clinton Foundation, Democratic National Committee and its affiliates, Wall Street firms, and, of course, Hillary Clinton and her campaign committee. The corrupt actors in the IRS and criminal Eric Holder are yet more evidence of how rotten the system is.

            The most obvious instance of corruption is the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s illegal handling of emails. In order to avoid prosecution, FBI director James Comey, rewrote federal law by arguing that it requires intention (it only requires gross negligence) and then declined to prosecute despite overwhelming evidence that she had the requisite intention.  

The Justice Department gave the fellow conspirators (for example, Cheryl Mills) unprecedented access to meetings, cut sweetheart deals with conspirators, agreed to destroy evidence, and refused to follow proper procedure (using a grand jury) in order to tank the case. The low point occurred when Clinton’s team destroyed evidence after receiving a congressional subpoena not to do so and the Justice Department did nothing. This is obstruction of justice and it is a felony. It led to the conviction of Bush administration official Scooter Libby and likely would have led to the prosecution of Richard Nixon had Jerry Ford not given him a pass. All this occurred when other people in government and the military were being prosecuted for doing precisely what Clinton did.

The stench of the investigation got worse when, as The Wall Street Journal pointed out, it came out that a group headed by Clintons’ longtime moneyman, Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, gave half a million dollars to the wife of the FBI official who oversaw the email investigation. Somehow, Comey and this official didn’t think this conflict of interest should cause him to recuse himself. Independent Journal Review reports that James Comey had a disturbing connection to the Clinton Foundation. Prior to his being the FBI director, he was a top official at a corporation that gave money to the foundation (Lockheed Martin), had contracts approved by Hillary Clinton’s state department, and was part of a group that paid Bill Clinton $250,000. Also, Breitbart reports that James Comey’s brother is a top official at a firm that gave nearly $1 million dollars to the Clinton election team and the Clinton Foundation.

In general, high government officials are above the law. Consider the IRS scandal, where the IRS was used as a weapon against conservative groups. Again, major players (such as Lois Lerner) perjured themselves, pleaded the Fifth, destroyed evidence, and so on, but were not prosecuted. The same is true with regard to the Fast and Furious gun-running program. Former head of the Justice Department, Eric Holder, was held in contempt of Congress because he lied about the program and then withheld evidence to Congress. Like Lerner, he skated free.   

The scope of corruption is breathtaking. Wikileaks released statements by people affiliated with the Clinton Foundation admitting that the non-profit Clinton Foundation was used to raise stacks of cash for the Clintons. Donations to the foundation were used to purchase access to Hillary Clinton when she headed the State Department. The Associated Press reports that more than half of the non-government people who met with Hillary Clinton when she was head of the State Department gave money to the Clinton Foundation either directly or through companies or groups. More than half. Worse, in some cases, there is a suspicious pattern of the State’s intervention on behalf of these groups. State Department officials also tried to cover up Hillary Clinton’s email crimes.

The Chicago Tribune reports that the Justice Department blocked the FBI from investigating the Clinton Foundation for selling access to political access and favors. Does this surprise anyone?

A distinct type of corruption can be seen in Wall Street firms (especially Goldman Sachs) who paid for Hillary Clinton’s political influence. No adult thinks that the Wall Street crowd would pay Clinton $250,000 for a 20-minute speech were it not purchasing political favors. It is hard to say much of anything in 20 minutes and leaked excerpts indicate Clinton did not say anything beyond clichés.

Project Veritas showed that Democratic-affiliated groups were involved in violence at Donald Trump’s campaign and other dirty tricks that outdid anything Nixon did. Breitbart reports that a mastermind of the violence (a husband of a Democratic congresswoman from Illinois) made over 300 visits to the White House and had a couple of one-on-one meetings with Obama. Again, no prosecution.   

The Democratic National Committee’s top officials (including Debbie Wasserman Schultz) resigned after it became clear that they were actively involved in sinking Bernie Sanders’ nomination. This is not merely corrupt, it is a crime.

The media collusion is sickening. It is not merely that the media who were colluding with the Clinton administration by coordinating with them, feeding them debate questions, and taking part in suspicious meetings involving the Clinton campaign and media friendlies. Two of the debates were moderated in a way that was obviously hostile to Trump. Moderator Lester Holt’s bias was eye-opening. Holt, for example, inserted himself into the debate by contradicting Trump on several issues (and, getting at least one dead wrong) and using questions that amounted to a verbal assault on Trump without a single similar question of Clinton.

Even the rigged election charge that caused the media to collapse onto the fainting couch was treated as a grave matter despite the fact that Clinton, Obama, and the media had no misgivings when Al Gore refused to recognize the election results. A recent academic study showed that more than 6% of illegal aliens voted and more than 20% of non-citizens indicated they were registered to vote in the 2008 elections. This likely affected major Congressional votes and is corruption on a grand scale.

More disturbing was the media choice to make the campaign about Donald Trump as a person rather than about issues. The discussion of many issues was thin to non-existent. Consider, for example, amnesty for illegal aliens, Obamacare, national debt, undeclared foreign wars, large numbers of adults not working, and the torturous tax code. Even the personal issues were handled in the most biased manner possible with allegations of battery by Donald Trump taken seriously and allegations that Hillary intimidated victims of Bill Clinton’s rapes and batteries ignored.   

The country’s politics is awash in corruption and criminality. The light shown on the orchestrated effort of the elites to foist Hillary Clinton on us makes this clear as day.