The Constitutional Case Against A Hillary Clinton Presidency

"One of the weak sides of republics, among their numerous advantages, is that they afford too easy an inlet to foreign corruption."  The Federalist No. 22: Hamilton

 

Between 2009 & 2012, when Hillary Clinton was Secretary Of State, the Clinton Foundation raised over $500 million including money from seven foreign governments.  Fifteen percent of the total, or $75 million, was spent on charitable grants.  More than $25 million went to fund travel expenses.  Nearly $110 million went toward employee compensation & 58%, or $290 million was classified as "other expenses."  It is not clear how much money the Clinton Foundation accepted from foreign sources when Hillary was a U.S. Senator from 2001 to 2009.  Source: Washington Post & Sean Davis, The Federalist

 

"She sold favors, she sold access.  Wait until you see what ultimately she did for all these people."  Donald Trump speaking @ a rally in Tampa on August 24 denouncing the Clintons for running a "pay for play" charade that grants top-level political access to donors to the Clinton Foundation.

 

Emoluments Clause of the Constitution of the United States (Article I, Section 9, Clause 8):  "No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State."  This clause was carried over from the Articles Of Confederation (Article VI) & was intended to prevent foreign governments & entities from buying corrupting influence in the U.S. by paying off U.S. government officials.  This is what Alexander Hamilton was writing about in The Federalist No. 22 – see above.  

 

click on graph to enlarge

 

Donald Trump is taking up so much of the media time that the obvious question is where is Hillary Clinton most days?  Now Hillary does get in the news but it is not her personal presence or action that is covered but rather revelations concerning her e-mails, her private server, or the Clinton Foundation that makes the news.

 

Until recently I was like Bernie Sanders (shudder) in that I had heard enough about all of the above Clinton topics thinking that pursuing them was a waste of time because none of it was gaining traction with the electorate & therefore was going nowhere.  But when the Associated Press reported that 85 people from foreign governments & foreign corporations had been in contact with Mrs. Clinton when she was Secretary Of State, & that these foreigners had donated money to the Clinton Foundation in order to gain special access to the U.S. government in the first place – such donations totaling $156 million – most of us who had not been paying the least bit of attention quickly connected the dots & saw "pay to play," "quid pro quo," "crony capitalism," or more to the point concluded that the contacts were arranged in

wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain for Bill, Hillary, & Chelsea – the three people the charitable foundation is named for.

 

In brief, the appearance of impropriety, ethics violations, & conflicts of interest are only magnified when you consider that the Clintons were "dead broke when they left the Whitehouse in 2001" & now Bill & Hillary are worth $111 million – source Money Nation July 26, 2016.  Hillary's net worth (see above graph) is $31 million & Bill's is $80 million – Hillary's net worth is 1.5 times larger than Jeb Bush's & 459 times larger than the median U.S. household net worth – a true capitalist success story that Hillary does not want to see duplicated for any normal citizen who she sees only as a government dependent statistic.

 

We have learned that Huma Abedin, aide to Hillary since 1996 & current Vice Chairwoman of the Clinton presidential campaign, had simultaneously worked for the Clinton Foundation, the State Department, & Teneo (a U.S. based global advisory firm with one of the founding partners being Bill Clinton's former Counselor while Bill was President – "Teneo is headquartered in NYC & has offices in Washington, Brussels, Sao Paulo, London, Dublin, Dubai, Hong Cong, Beijing, Atlanta, San Francisco, Doha, Singapore, Toronto, & Melbourne.  Teneo partners exclusively with CEOs of many of the world's largest & most complex companies & organizations."  Source Wikipedia.)

 

It is the close ties of Huma, & therefor Hillary, to requests from Teneo & the Clinton Foundation seeking State Department help for Teneo clients who happen to be foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation that is most troubling in raising potential conflicts of interests & pay to play concerns.  The State Department is not releasing e-mails that would shed light on this matter.

 

Tantamount to an admission of guilt concerning foreign donations the three Clintons have said that if Hillary wins the presidential election that the Clinton Foundation will only raise money from non-foreign sources (exception being the Clinton Health Access Initiative that will still permit any foreign government to donate) & that Bill will resign from the Board & will not raise any more money – Chelsea will remain on the Board.  Why make any changes to the Clinton Foundation if all is legitimate, honest, & open?

 

Here are excerpts from Kim Strassel's WSJ Potomac Watch column of August 26 – Kim is the best columnist I know of that has followed this subject matter intensely from the beginning:  "The Democratic nominee obviously didn't set up her server with the express purpose of exposing national secrets – that was incidental.  She set up the server to keep secret the details of the Clintons' private life – a life built around an elaborate & sweeping money-raising & self-promoting entity known as the Clinton Foundation . . . Mrs. Clinton's problem – as we now know from this week's release of e-mails from Huma Abedin's private Clinton-server account - was that there was no divide between public & private.  Mrs. Clinton's State Department & her family foundation were one seamless entity – employing the same people, comparing schedules, mixing foundation donors with State supplicants.  This is why she maintained a secret server, & why she deleted 15,000 emails that should have been turned over to the government . . . Mr. Band (President of Teneo) asks if Hillary's doing this conference, or having that meeting, & when she's going to Brazil.  Ms. Abedin responds that she's working on it, or will get this or that answer.  These aren't the emails of mere casual acquaintances; they don't even bother with salutations or signoffs.  These are the emails of two people engaged in the same purpose – serving the State-Clinton Foundation nexus . . . Mostly, we learned this week that Mrs. Clinton's foundation issue goes far beyond the "appearance" of a conflict of interest.  This is straight up pay to play.  When Mr. Band sends an email demanding a Hillary meeting with the crown prince of Bahrain & notes he's a "good friend of ours," what Mr. Band means is that the crown prince had contributed millions to a Clinton Global Initiative scholarship program, & therefore has bought face time.  It doesn't get more clear-cut, folks."

 

With regard to the aforementioned 15,000 emails on Hillary's private server that were deleted – they were not deleted the way you would clean up your Inbox.  FBI records indicate that when Hillary deleted e-mails from her private server her team went out of their way to not only erase them permanently using a software program, known as BleachBit, but to prevent them from being recovered & hiding traces of deleted files.  If these e-mails pertained to Chelsea's wedding & yoga classes why this extraordinary effort?

 

SC Congressman Trey Gowdy speaking during an interview on FNC – "She and her lawyers had those emails deleted. And they didn't just push the delete button; they had them deleted where even God can't read them. They were using something called BleachBit. You don't use BleachBit for yoga emails or bridesmaids emails. When you're using BleachBit, it is something you really do not want the world to see."  Click here to see the Gowdy interview – the BleachBit comments come about the 3:15 mark.

 

click on photo of secret server wiping cloth to enlarge.  The RNC handed out the cloths during the Democrat convention last month. 

 

Donald Trump previously called for a special prosecutor to investigate both Hillary's e-mails & private server, & the Clinton Foundation. 

 

Now it is too late in the election cycle for a special prosecutor to be assigned & to conduct an investigation.  But it is not too late for Trump to break this e-mail, private server, Clinton Foundation bewildering maze down into the simplest of terms for the electorate to clearly see & understand so they can determine if it is important to them like such matters of foreign influence corruption were to our Founders.  I have tried to explain the issue as clearly as I know how in this post. 

 

Trump is going after all the groups who have historically voted Democrat – & this is an excellent strategy.  If he picks off just a percent or two from each group it could be enough to win.  In pursuing the Clinton e-mail, private server, & Clinton Foundation controversy Trump should target the 20% of the electorate that is persuadable keying his effort to swing states.

 

But the battle for any non-Democrat politician is to overcome the Death Of Democracy principles that control every election once the voters understand they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury - & in Hillary Clinton the voters have found a candidate all too willing to cooperate with the further descent of our country from the current apathy to dependence stage.  This Death Of Democracy phenomenon explains the principles that are the most powerful influence on an election in America today because its destructive message has taken hold of a majority or near majority of the citizenry.

 

The Emoluments Clause (see above) is the basis of the constitutional case against a Hillary Clinton presidency.  The clause has been interpreted & enforced by Attorneys General, the Comptrollers General, & Congress who exercised its power of Consent under the clause by enacting the Foreign Gifts & Decorations Act which authorizes federal employees to accept foreign government gifts under certain circumstances – & having Hillary Clinton take money from a listed charitable foundation (that acts as a slush fund for use by the Clintons) that devotes 15% of its proceeds to charity is not one of the circumstances.