The Clintons and the Politics of Scandal

The rush to use the scandal for political advantage (once the Dems take power again) has already resulted in some embarrassing misfires…

By Jonathan Turley

Below is my column in the Hill on the deposition of former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Democrats are now pledging retaliation once they take power by calling President Donald Trump. The rush to use the scandal for political advantage has already resulted in some embarrassing misfires.

Here is the column:

The deposition of former President Bill Clinton  [] was both unprecedented and strikingly reminiscent. It was the first time a former president had been deposed by the House, let alone under subpoena. Yet it is hardly the first deposition for Clinton. Twenty-eight years ago, I testified in Clinton’s impeachment hearing after he had lied under oath about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Given his earlier previous perjury over an affair with a young woman, few would rely on Clinton’s denials of relations with multiple young women shown in pictures associated with Epstein. But given the paucity of direct evidence, there is ample room for plausible deniability. And plausible deniability is the realm wherein the Clintons have long dwelt — between the outright conclusive and the merely scandalous.

The embarrassing photos of Clinton in a hot tub or receiving massages from young women come as a shock to no one. For anyone familiar with his past, Clinton was in his element. The level of Clinton’s interaction with Epstein is also extensive. Clinton flew on Epstein’s notorious private plane, dubbed the “Lolita Express, at least 26 times and had Epstein visit the White House at least 16 times. Although Clinton has denied visiting Epstein’s island, various witnesses have claimed they saw him there.

Epstein emails also discuss his contributions to the Clinton Global Initiative and his work to assist the Clintons.

That presents a greater challenge than debating what the meaning of “is is.”

The greatest danger was not that Clinton would be charged with sexual crimes connected to these underage girls. Prosecutors clearly did not find sufficient evidence for such charges. However, Clinton has previously shown the danger of being “too clever by half.” He and Hillary have spent their lives evading accountability, including his alleged perjury in the prior deposition. That record can create a dangerous sense of impunity and misplaced self-confidence.

In 1998, I appeared at the Clinton impeachment and, despite voting for Clinton as a lifelong Democrat, I testified that his conduct in office had satisfied the standard of a “high crime and misdemeanor.”

Clinton ultimately relied on Democratic senators to avoid conviction and was never formally charged with perjury, despite his public admissions of guilt.

In the latest deposition, Clinton denied knowing anything about Epstein’s conduct with underage girls. Clinton built on his prior Lewinsky testimony by pluralizing his most famous declaration, denying that he had sex with those women. He said he had no memory of the identity of the young woman pictured with him in the hot tub. “I saw nothing,” he declared. “I did nothing wrong.”

For critics, it was the Sgt. Schultz defense that the Clintons have used in a long litany of scandals.

There is no evidence that Clinton had relations with “those women.” Although Epstein’s associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, attended Chelsea Clinton’s wedding after the allegations were publicly known, there is no way to prove any knowledge by Clinton of his friend’s unlawful proclivities. Maxwell was also given an award by the Clinton Global Initiative in 2013 — five years after the public disclosure of the first Epstein allegations.

Investigators will now go through the long deposition to see if Clinton tripped any wires in his denials. In the meantime, Democrats are denouncing the deposition while pledging to replicate it by hauling in President Trump at some future date, once they are back in power. It is unlikely to happen while he is in office, but the Clinton deposition created a precedent for subpoenaing former presidents.

There is no evidence that Trump committed any crime in relation to Epstein. He will be able to point to the fact that he expelled Epstein from his club at Mar-a-Lago, as well as his correspondence with local police encouraging their investigation of Epstein.

It does not matter that prosecutors, including under the Biden administration, found no evidence to charge Trump. Democrats have already dispensed with any need for a factual basis for conspiracy theories.

Recently, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) gave a chest-pounding speech about revealing the names of six powerful men who had been protected by the Trump Justice Department from disclosure. Four of them turned out to have nothing to do with Epstein and weren’t especially powerful either. All Khanna accomplished was to multiply by 400 percent the earlier fiasco by Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), who spuriously connected politicians with a different man — a neurosurgeon named Jeffrey Epstein.

This week, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) used a hearing to accuse Trump of abusing an underage girl who was later allegedly murdered to keep her silent. His source? A driver who said he overheard Trump talking about abusing a minor and later learned of her murder. There is no evidence of the death, and the source has reportedly published hundreds of anti-Trump and bizarre postings.

Lieu posted two pages from the FBI report containing the allegation but withheld a third page that showed the same man making further allegations of a drunken Hillary Clinton and an effort to frame someone in the Oklahoma City bombing. There is a good reason raw investigative and grand jury materials are usually kept secret.

The only thing more indecent than Epstein himself is the effort to use the scandal for political advantage. The scandal has ensnared as many leading Democrats as Republicans, if not more. But Epstein is the perfect political weapon with salacious allegations to inject directly into the media bloodstream against your opponents.

Epstein himself once boasted, “I invest in people — be it politics or science. It’s what I do.” It now appears that Epstein himself is the investment that many in politics believe will bring unlimited political gains.

***

Jonathan Turley is the author of the New York Times bestselling “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”

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(TLB) published  this article from Jonathan Turley with our appreciation for his perspective

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.

Header featured image (edited) credit: TODAY.com show tease/public open card.

Emphasis added by (TLB)

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