Were anyone to draw a measure of smug satisfaction from former President Donald Trump’s myriad indictments, that person would be Hillary Clinton.
It was Clinton who Trump spent the 2016 campaign promising to lock up for email protocol violations.
Clinton was never indicted of course – although she did lose the election to Trump in what may well be the largest upset in modern political history.
The results of the 2016 election made Trump the most consequential person on Earth, and pushed Clinton into the periphery.
So, one might expect Clinton to have gained some satisfaction from Trump’s recent string of indictments.
Hillary Clinton denies any satisfaction
Hillary Clinton explained during an MSNBC interview that she did not “feel any satisfaction” over Trump’s indictments, but rather, she felt “great profound sadness.” Do we believe her? Personally, I do not. Here’s what she had to say.
“I didn’t think that [the appearance] would be under these circumstances, yet another set of indictments,” Clinton told host Rachael Maddow, while laughing. “It’s hard to believe. I don’t feel any satisfaction. I feel great profound sadness that we have a former president who has been indicted for so many charges that went right to the heart of whether or not our democracy would survive.”
Clinton then went on to emphasize the seriousness of Trump’s actions.
“If you stop and think about what the public evidence is…[Trump} set out to defraud the United States of America and the citizens of our nation. He used tactics, harassment, intimidation, he made threats, he and his allies went after state officials, local officials responsible for conducting elections. Now we know they even went into voting machines in order to determine whether or not those voting machines had somehow been breached when they were the ones actually doing the breaching.
“So there is a great deal already in the public record…clearly this investigation has been very thorough. But I don’t know that anybody should be satisfied with this. This is a terrible moment for our country to have a former president accused of these terribly important crimes.
And finally: “The only satisfaction may be that the system is working. That all of the efforts by Donald Trump, his allies, and his enablers to try to silence the truth, to try to undermine democracy, have been brought into the light and justice is being pursued.”
Bringing politics into the process
Clinton doesn’t exactly sound like an impartial observer, does she.
She sounds nakedly political in her read of Trump’s variety of indictments.
Now, Hillary is a politician, and she should be expected to put a political spin on things – but the more significant problem with the cases against Trump is that most of them stink of political bias.
Regardless of whether Trump broke the law or not, the cases are tainted – at least in the eyes of the general public.
Hillary should recognize this; If Hillary were truly as worried about the state of US democracy she would be singing a different tune, something like, ‘Trump is innocent until proven guilty, like all US citizens…the system works…let’s see how this turns out for Trump…the charges against him are serious, very concerning…”
Instead, she jumps right to ‘Trump tried to overthrow US democracy and now he’s going down for it.’
You’re not helping, Hillary Clinton.
Harrison Kass is the Senior Editor and opinion writer at 19FortyFive. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.
From the Vault
‘You Really Oughta Go Home’: F-22 Raptor Stealth Fighter Flew Under F-4 From Iran
