Democrat power brokers have cleared the field for Hillary Clinton. Other than an extreme long shot or two, the former first lady has zero competition in the Democratic presidential primary. She can seemingly waltz to the party’s presidential nomination.
There is even talk of Clinton skipping Democratic primary debates. This is exactly how Hillary Clinton wants it. Her disdain for retail politics is well known. Hillary Clinton believes she is entitled to the presidency and the powers that be in the Democratic Party are breaking their backs to ensure she succeeds.
Therein lies the trouble for the Democratic Party. Scandals are mounting around Hillary Clinton. The latest kerfuffle stems from news that during Hillary Clinton’s four years as secretary of state, she exclusively used a private email account on a private server housed inside her New York home.
The email correspondence for cabinet officials like Secretary Clinton is supposed to be archived and available for public scrutiny. That would have been done automatically if Clinton used her government email.
Instead, she deliberately circumvented that process, despite being advised differently. Clinton might have violated federal law. Whether or not she did is not the key point. Even if technically legal, Hillary’s actions were ethically sketchy and open her up to a whole new line of questioning, like ‘What was she hiding while serving as our country’s top diplomat?’
The fallout from this news is far reaching. The private emails will reignite the Benghazi scandal, which Democrats thought they had put to rest months ago. Instead, the House Select Committee on Benghazi, led by Rep. Trey Gowdy, has subpoenaed all of Clinton’s private emails regarding Libya.
Clinton defenders will try shrug off this burgeoning scandal as a vast right wing conspiracy. Unfortunately for them, this story was not unearthed by conservative bloggers or Fox News. It was the left-leaning New York Times that dropped this bombshell on Clinton world on Monday.
As much as the liberal media loves to defend their political allies, reporters have a much larger bias. They all want to break a story, especially one with ramifications as big as this one. Every major media outlet in the country is now working on this story. That means, despite the hopes of Hillary’s defenders, it is not going away anytime soon.
The burgeoning email scandal ties into another troubling episode for Hillary Clinton and her impending coronation. There are numerous reports that the Clinton Foundation was raising money from foreign governments while Hillary served as secretary of state. Countries that gave money to the foundation include Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. What did they receive in exchange for those generous contributions?
Iowa Democrats have already spoken out about the problems that arise from that news. The Wall Street Journal spoke with Kurt Meyer, who was the runner-up in the Iowa Democratic Party’s recent four-way race for state chairman. Meyer serves as chair for three Democrat county parties, Howard, Mitchell and Worth.
“Kurt Meyer, chairman of the Democratic Party in three counties in northern Iowa, said the contributions from foreign governments amount to a “curry-favor effort to get an advantageous seat on the bus with the next president of the United States. And that scares me.”
Then there is a recent column by the Des Moines Register’s resident liberal columnist, Rekha Basu, written before the Clinton email scandal broke:
“Clinton has some questions to answer. A tough one comes from the recent influx of donations to the family’s Clinton Foundation, breeding suspicions they are intended to gain influence with her if she becomes president. The Washington Post reported the charitable foundation has raised nearly $2 billion, including contributions from corporate giants and foreign governments — $262 million of that since Clinton left the Obama administration. And a sizable share of those donating $10,000 or more are also donors to the Ready for Hillary PAC and to her 2008 campaign.”
Iowa Democrats are fretting. They cannot afford a scandal that would destroy Hillary Clinton’s presidential hopes. There is no backup plan. It’s Hillary or bust. They need her in the race, they need her scandal-free and they need her to campaign in Iowa frequently to help rebuild a party reeling from devastating losses in 2014.