How everyone looks bad because Bill Clinton met with Loretta Lynch

[babylonsister]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-everyone-looks-bad-because-bill-clinton-met-with-loretta-lynch/2016/07/02/a7807adc-3ff4-11e6-a66f-aa6c1883b6b1_story.html


How everyone looks bad because Bill Clinton met with Loretta Lynch
By Dan Balz
Chief correspondent July 2 at 7:58 AM


snip//

For a politician long praised for his political smarts, it was a striking error of judgment on Clinton’s part to walk to Lynch’s plane for any kind of conversation. It was a similarly huge lapse on the part of the attorney general, who was appointed by Clinton as a U.S. attorney in 1999, to allow him to come aboard for any kind of conversation.

snip//


But this is anything but a routine matter, and there is a difference between political interference and a case involving politics. This is a case with dramatic political ramifications, as everyone knows. The outcome could reshape the presidential campaign.

Lynch isn’t the only one whose actions raise questions. Think of this: The president has endorsed and is actively campaigning for Clinton at a time when his Justice Department is still in the process of deciding whether she should be prosecuted. Although that has drawn little comment, it shocks some who have been in senior positions in previous governments and who believe that no White House can be truly indifferent or disinterested in such an important case.

Obama has made mistakes on this before. He seemingly sided with Clinton earlier, saying she was careless but that he didn’t think she had intentionally put national security in jeopardy. Does the fact of his endorsement mean that he thinks, as do any number of legal experts, that she will be in some way exonerated by the Justice Department?

Finally there is the question of when the investigation will end and the findings made public. The prosecutors are trying to be careful and thorough, which is laudable. But a clock is ticking. The Democrats are now weeks away from likely nominating Clinton for president. The longer the investigation goes, the more any decision has major political impact.

Hillary Clinton wants and needs a clean resolution of the long investigation. Bill Clinton and the attorney general managed to muddy all this with their private chat in Phoenix, no doubt to the consternation of both Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Justice Department officials trying to bring this to a resolution soon. No one looks good in this transaction.

[NorthCarolina]

1. It's possible he set up for her recusal by doing the bum's rush onto her plane. If that happens

then I would assume one could consider his stunt a success.

[emulatorloo]

2. " is still in the process of deciding whether she should be prosecuted."

Unsupported claim. Only the FBI knows what the investigation is about, and they aren't leaking.

I understand the media's desire to create a "Tarmac-gate" scandal. They are driven by increasing their clicks and ratings.

[babylonsister]

6. So, blame the media for

their boneheadedness? If this hadn't happened, they no doubt wouldn't be talking about it. And fyi, got this article from Robert Reich with this:

Why did Bill Clinton have a private meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch at the Phoenix airport last week, just when the Justice Department is likely nearing completion of its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server for her emails as Secretary of State? Washington Post Columnist Dan Balz (below) blames it on Bill Clinton’s “foolish indifference or plain foolishness.” I don’t think it’s either. Bill Clinton wasn’t indifferent, and he’s hardly foolish. I attribute it to a sense of entitlement. Bill Clinton simply felt he was entitled to visit Lynch on his own, when the plane he was riding in touched down on the tarmac near Lynch’s government plane.

He was wrong, of course. And the visit (which I assume was innocent) has only served to undermine public confidence in the neutrality and impartiality of the Justice Department’s probe – as Lynch herself recognized. “The fact that the meeting that I had is now casting a shadow over how people are going to view that work is something that I take seriously, and deeply and painfully,” she said later.

Bill Clinton is one of the most talented politicians of our generation, and I feel privileged to have served with him in Washington. But I find his sense of entitlement deeply frustrating.

What do you think?

[emulatorloo]

9. Do you have credible links that indicate HRC is in danger of 'prosecution.'?

Or credible links that indicate WJC and Lynch have not had a relationship for 20 years?

Insinuations or assertions in Op-Eds don't count, as that is SPIN.

[charlyvi]

11. Clinton Rules eom

[babylonsister]

12. Actually, I am not

rooting for her to be prosecuted. After all, I am a Dem and would not look forward to the circus that would surround that.

However, this article is about the stupidity of that meet-up, and with that I do agree.

[emulatorloo]

15. 1. I didn't say yr 'rooting'. 2. Meeting stupid maybe, nefarious no.

I did not say you are "rooting" for Clinton to be prosecuted. I never said that and I am not implying it either.

I said Balz's assertion that the JD is trying to decide whether she is going to be prosecuted is fact-free baseless speculation.

I am sticking to my assertion that "Tarmac-gate" is a failed creation of right-wingers that the ad-supported media has taken up in hopes of increasing clicks and ratings. Horse-race coverage and fake melodrama.

[monmouth4]

3. I think Bill enjoys his part in a drama, any drama as long as he's involved...n/t

[KMOD]

4. That's because President Obama,

like most rational people, is aware that this is not a criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton.

This investigation can not wrap up soon enough. Too many worried and misinformed minds need to be eased.

[MaggieD]

5. The indictment fairy is not coming

Sorry guys.

[JaneyVee]

7. Oh god please dont start whining about insignificant things already.

Dear media, dont turn the next 8 years into a TMZ episode.

[okieinpain]

8. witness description

http://observer.com/2016/07/exclusive-security-source-details-bill-clinton-maneuver-to-meet-loretta-lynch/

[pnwmom]

10. No. Bill did a thoughtless, friendly thing, but it makes no one else look bad.

And has zero to do with Obama.

[treestar]

14. oh bull, people can be friends

and talk to each other. Also they are not looking to prosecute. No this does not re-shape everything. Will they bother to dig into Trump's past in the media, ever?

[DemonGoddess]

16. Nope

Doing that negates the horse race they want

[msongs]

17. obama meets putin. is there a secret obama/putin plot to overthrow the USA? nt