Have we seen the last House investigation of Hillary Clinton? The final Clinton hearing scheduled in the current House blew up in everyone’s faces yesterday, and it’s hard to believe there will be any more until such time as Republicans become House majority again. So, let me tentatively say, possibly. Of course, there’s still the Senate.
Nancy LeTourneau explains what happened yesterday.
Hillary Clinton haters were all a-flutter about the prospect of “explosive” information being revealed at Thursday’s hearing on the Clinton Foundation as the last hurrah from Rep. Mark Meadow’s (R-NC) chairmanship of the House Oversight Committee.
What could go wrong?
The first blow to their expectations came when U.S. Attorney John Huber, who was tasked by former Attorney General Sessions to investigate all of the anti-FBI conspiracy theories germinated by right wingers, announced that he would be a no-show.
One suspect U.S. Attorney Huber had a clue what might happen and didn’t want to be there.
The eagerly anticipated stars of the show were two guys often called “bounty hunters,” John Moynihan and Larry Doyle. Moynihan and Doyle — sounds like an old vaudeville act — claim to have spent the last three years doing an intensive forensic financial analysis of the Clinton Foundation.
John Moynihan and Larry Doyle testified that the foundation had violated its tax status, co-mingled funds with personal use and engaged in pay-to-play while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. But as even Alana Goodman of the Washington Examiner reported, the hearing eventually blew up over their refusal to turn over their 6,000 page written report to the committee.
Moynihan and Doyle, maybe.
Why? Because the whole point of this exercise was for Moynihan and Doyle to make a lot of money.
While I wouldn’t doubt that there is some dark money behind their efforts, the real payoff they’re hoping for stems from the fact that they filed their claims with the IRS. That’s because a whistleblower program “pays those who expose any form of tax underpayment. In cases that exceed $2 million, the Office pays 15-30% of unpaid taxes, fines, and interest collected.” According to Doyle’s testimony, they believe that the Clinton Foundation owes at minimum $400 million in taxes, which would net them between $60-120 million for their efforts. That provides both the motivation for their findings as well as their reason for not wanting to turn their evidence over to the committee–they want to protect their investment.
The IRS so far has denied their claims, but Moynihan and Doyle are holding out hope and might eventually file a civil suit against the IRS to collect the money.
However, the committee had some parts of the report. They had gotten it from John Solomon, a “journalist” with a long history of skewing stories to support right-wing agendas.
So in other words, while the “whistleblowers” refused to give their written findings to the committee, they had obviously been willing to share them with a reporter who has been spinning conspiracy theories about the Clinton Foundation for years. We know that is the case because Solomon wrote an article based on their documents a full week before the hearing.
You know me to not be an unabashed supporter of Hillary Clinton, and if someone ever does dig up actual dirt on her I’m not going to faint away in shock. But I have always doubted the Clintons played fast and loose with Foundation money, if only because it would be really hard for managers of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit to get away with much without getting caught, seems to me. Especially when there is so much money and interest in finding dirt on that particular nonprofit.
In Trump scandal news, ProPublica has evidence that Trump’s inauguration committee way overpaid the Trump Organization for rooms, meals and event space at the company’s Washington hotel, and that this was Ivanka’s doing.
As much as I dislike neoliberalism and and Hillary's tone deafness as a campaigner, I've never viewed her as someone who'd flout the law. The only time I think she may have come close to that was way back in the Whitewater thing, BEFORE she became a national politician.
It'd be great to see the GOP back off on her as they've demonstrated for more than two decades they have nothing on her. I believe she's the most investigated woman in US history.
Reat In Pieces, House Hillary hokum!
As for you two dumber-than-Clouseau-clowns, you wanna make some real bucks?
How 'bout you use your mad investigative "skills" and look into a "Foundation" whose namesake really does use it like a "Mad Money"jar, and stick your noses into Dumb-n-Old tRUMP's?
Sheesh!
I can't evan read a book, because on the TV machine, some new tRUMP shit falls from the sky every few minutes like droppings from pigeons who ate some Ex-Lax while perched on the head of a statue of that treasonous traitor, Robert E. Lee!
INCOMING!!!!!
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Fwit-tilter ate!!!
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcWAWPDS4Bo
Cundlag, I hear you, I've had it with the twit filter too, wtf maha?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk04byLSIGw
Yeah! 😡
C'mon, maha!! ðŸ˜
I'm sure it really does filter twits. But why not take it down? Mostly, it seems like it affects us, your commenters.
But if some twit's do get through if you take it down, there ain't many twit's who can take on you and us, and walk away without at least a few nasty bruises!!!
For the most part congressional wingnuts know these hearings are unlikely to dig up actionable dirt on the Clintons. Not wanting to pass any substantive policies to help their followers, who lack health care and struggle in this “booming” economy just like folks on the left, it’s a way for congressional wingnuts and cowards to appease the base. All it takes for life to be “better” for them is the knowledge a Clinton is being dragged, brown people are being demonized, libtards are being owned, best of all, being force fed fear of some “other” coming for them to kill them in their beds.
I do not get it, I post something, and it disappears. If I re post it, it says, “you already said that!” Sometimes I come back and the post is there, other times, not. Is that the twit filter?
Trump's MO as a 'businessman' has always had a gangster element. but without the blood and dead bodies. Trump's "best people" think this distinction makes them excempt. See Rudy's most recent defense – "Nobody got killed."
Trump has surrounded himself with prople who enjoy being thrugish and threatening – just short of violence. The low-calorie gangsters usually succeeded with legal harassment, and intimidation. But they don't want to do real time for sedious crimes. They are wannbe goodfellas.
I think the distinction is catching up with Trump. He always thought he was ruthlessly capable of using the power of the federal government to punish his enmies. Trump has fairly explicitly promised to do it. The problem is – he has to do it through his appointees, and those guys don't have any interst in doing time in jail.
Going after HRC is the classic example. Trump repeatedly and explicitly called for DOJ to go after Clinton and the guy Sessions finally appointed to investigate is a no-show. As far as I can tell, and this is a guess, Sessions opeend the investigation into Clinton with directions to ONLY pursue criminal proceedings if there was sufficiant proof. Tillerson recently pointed out hw Trump would be enraged when Tillerson wouldn't do anything illegal. Whitaker seems to be aware every damn instruction he gives will be recorded or written down with a list of witnesses in the room. Going after Trump's enemies with the power of the DOJ is a ticket to the big house for Whitaker, so he's been a huge disappointment for Trump. The nominee to replace Whitaker is a pro with a conservative bias, but old enough to know what happened to Nixon's A/G. (He went to jail.)
The person Trump thinks should execute everyone on Trump's enemie's list is his Chief of Staff. Just a guess, but tell me why I'm wrong. My guess is that Kelly was unwilling to cross a line with illegal orders to be the one to go to IRS with a list – go to DOJ with a list and dream up ways to use the federal agencies to financialy punish the people who are after Trump. It can't be done without leaving a trail. Kelly refused, I think and told Trump to use his own little fingers to dial those people and issue those orders. Not only is the position vacant, people are running from it after they hear the job description.
It will take a while, but the power of the federal government will take Trump down. Trump is a wannbe godfather and he surrounded himself with con men and grifters, none of whom want to go to jail. There never was a cadre of true Trump devotees willing to kill, die or go to jail for Trump. The question is how much or how little Trump will be held accountable.
It seems like one desparate attempt after another is being generated from the bowels of the malignant branch of the Republican Party. They are aware by now that real investigations are exposing real corruption and real criminal activity. Some are even questioning if their vote for Trump might have been a mistake, that it wasn't really a choice between two horrible crooks, but a choice between a real crook and the perception of a real crook. They are faced with mounting evidence that they were duped. Played for succors. Fed lies and propaganda from home and abroad. No one likes to admit that.
So the play has been lately, from the hard core defenders, desparate attempts to vilify Hillary. Some shield against the embarrassing truth is demanded for ego defense. It is much better if it was somewhat true and they did not buy into the huckster scam of huckster scams. That kind of mistake just creates huge emotional pain and in some, much needed critical thinking and prudent skepticism skill development.
In this case the planned illusion led to some major errors and the exposure of some of some big players in this continual smoke and mirrors show. Quite a good read I must said. A behind the curtain look at the real mechanisms of the workings the "Wizard".
"I have always doubted the Clintons played fast and loose with Foundation money, if only because it would be really hard for managers of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit to get away with much without getting caught…"
Right, they are not stupid. I've long pondered why the Repugs always go after the Clintons on fictional grounds, because after all, Bill and Hillary are sleazy enough. The answer is that in this country, a great deal of sleaze is perfectly legal.
The Republicans don't see anything wrong with that, far from it, but they fear and envy the Clintons, especially Bill, for his popularity. They can't get them on real stuff, but fiction is very effective with the Fox News/ hate radio audience.
For the Clintons, legal sleaze has been a long career trajectory; they have always been good at it and are now at the top of their game, having leveraged their influence to great heights. At the same time they maintain their genteel image, despite Bill's trailor-trash moments. They are more than welcome at any high-society affair, except maybe in Russia.
If Trump were anywhere near as smart and well-connected as the Clintons (but this is to suppose the impossible), he would not be heading for so much hot water.