According to Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar’s wife, Calpurnia, was “above reproach.”
Any naïve soul who ever thought this of Hillary Clinton should be disabused of that notion by FBI Director James Comey’s press conference this morning announcing that she and the State Department culture over which she presided were guilty of “extreme carelessness”—but not an indictable offense—in connection with email breaches involving national security.
Never having been naïve about either Hillary or Bill, Comey’s finding—as much a political as legal conclusion—surprises me not at all and changes not one whit my decision about what presidential candidate for whom to vote.
If the saying that a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich is correct, than Hillary—if Comey had been so inclined—would now be ham-on-rye for “material negligence” (without criminal intent) in the dispute. Instead, her punishment, with more possible to come in November, is the revelation is that in trying to control embarrassing information flows about her own affairs (including the Clinton Foundation), she magnified the problem a hundredfold and displayed a degree of political incompetence that would be disqualifying for president in normal years.
But—thanks to Despicable Donald—this is not a normal year.
Should Comey have recommended an indictment on lesser charges, akin to that against General David Petraeus—who, unlike Hillary’s lack of criminal intent, willfully disclosed secret information to his mistress? I think not.
America’s Founding Fathers were political men, not legal schoolmarms, who understood that the life of the Republic would depend—under the Constitution—on how ultimate holders of powers were judged. The proper venue for punishing a candidate about to be nominated at this late stage for the highest office in the land was not a debatable criminal referral by an unelected bureaucrat like the FBI Director who should not be made into a one-man Star Chamber by ceding into his hands alone life-and-death power over our Republic’s political fate by allowing him to disqualify someone like Hillary Clinton for her legally murky though ethically questionable behavior.
The appropriate remedy, at an earlier stage, would have to allow a trial by the U.S. Senate sitting as an impeachment court if Hillary Clinton were still Secretary of State. But now, the remedy, if any, is rightfully in the hands of the voters—not Comey’s hands.
The Constitution is not a suicide pact, and Comey was not empowered to administer a sort of assisted suicide for the presidency by probably ensuring the election of a man in Donald Trump certifiably less fit to serve than Hillary Clinton. So, too, the voters have no obligation to drink the Jonestown Koolaid by voting for Trump merely to gain the satisfaction of forcing Hillary Clinton to drink it also in punishment for her real and imagined sins.
To put in a Jewish context, Persian King Aahasuerus was sinful, but who would want to depose him if the alternative were raising Haman to the highest power?
At this point, the proper legal and political punishment is to elect Hillary president and make her do penance every day of her term, a bit like the scourging but not deposition English King Henry II had to undergo as penance for his poor judgment in connection with the unfortunate demise in the Cathedral of Archbishop Thomas a Becket. Hillary, in contrast, has nobody’s blood on her hands, except in the minds of her conspiracy-mongering detractors.
Hillary is not royalty, but still is deserving for president of what the Chinese call “the mandate of heaven” because the alternative is Donald Trump.
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