America’s second chance to prove Clintons aren’t above the law

As usual, Mark Twain had it right when he

reputedly said, “History doesn’t repeat itself but
it often rhymes.”  He might have been
envisioning the current Clinton drama and
whether the nation learned anything from the
last one.
Seventeen years after the United States Senate
rejected two articles of impeachment against
President Bill Clinton, America is getting a
mulligan. It’s getting another chance to prove
we really are a nation of laws, that rich and poor,
powerful and weak — and the Clintons — stand
equal before a blindfolded Justice.
Because this second test comes from Hillary
Clinton, and also involves probable criminal
actions, it is imperative that we get it right this
time. The nation is still paying a big price for
getting it wrong in 1999.
By beating charges of which he was clearly
guilty, Bill Clinton proved that equal justice is an
ideal, not a fact. He was acquitted of perjury and
obstruction because he was too big and popular
to convict over actions that grew out of a sex
scandal.
One inevitable result was a boom of political
corruption as pols up and down the food chain
vied to see whether they also were too important
to convict. From coast to coast, the corrosive
result is obvious as prosecutors lock up scores
of officials, only to see many replaced with more
crooks. Overall crime in America is down, but it’s
soaring in the halls of government.
Which brings us back to Hillary Clinton or, more
accurately, her case brings us back to the
question of whether we are committed to a
single standard of justice. Are we a nation of
laws, or is that just another fuddy-duddy
aspiration of the Founders that modern
sophisticates should dump?
While Clinton has not been charged, enough is
known about the FBI’s criminal investigation of
her home-brew server and reckless handling of
national security secrets to reasonably conclude
that prosecution is warranted.
Once the people say integrity is optional, the
nation is lost. An America that gives up on
integrity would not be America anymore.
A thorough investigation also would have looked
at whether she sold favors as secretary of state
to firms and individuals who paid her husband
millions for speeches and contributed millions
more to the family foundation. But that angle
apparently never was even considered.
It is a tragedy, then, of the first order that
Clinton will probably never face the music on
either matter. President Obama’s endorsement of
her was a virtual “all clear” signal to the Justice
Department as well as to hesitant Democratic
voters.
Obama’s gushing assertion that Clinton has “the
courage, the compassion and the heart to get
the job done” demolishes any hope that the FBI
probe would turn on the merits.
With Donald Trump seemingly bent on self-
destruction, that leaves only two hurdles
remaining before another conniving Clinton
occupies the Oval Office.
The first hurdle is whether FBI Director James
Comey and agents on the case quietly accept a
“stand down” order. Their law-enforcement
training could lead them to go along as good
soldiers, or it could lead to public objections and
a “Saturday-night massacre” scenario at Justice,
with Obama playing Richard Nixon.
That outcome is unlikely, if only because the
career price would be too high for Comey and
the agents involved, especially with the liberal
media denouncing them as racists, misogynists,
blah, blah, blah.
Voters are the second and last hurdle. Assuming
Clinton never has to offer a defense to the e-
mails and server beyond the tortured lies she’s
told in public, Americans must decide whether
she, like her husband, is too big and popular for
ordinary standards of justice.
If she becomes president despite the high
probability that she committed the same crimes
that have sent others to prison or infamy, it will
be certain that we have cut our roots to the
Founders, and that John Adams was wrong.
“We are a nation of laws and not of men,” the
second president said. Not anymore. We would
now be a nation whose laws are void if your
name is Clinton.
As before, there would be copycats in politics,
business and society at large, but who would
stop them and declare that the laws matter?
There would be nobody left.
Once the people say integrity is optional, the
nation is lost. An America that gives up on
integrity would not be America anymore.
Donor is a pain in the cash for Blas
For once, you can be sure Mayor de Blasio is
telling the truth. After one of his big donors
pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges, de Blasio
told reporters, “I wish I never met the guy.”
No kidding.
“The guy” is Jona Rechnitz, a businessman who
admits to being the bag man — literally — in the
alleged kickback scheme involving Norman
Seabrook, former head of the correction officers
union. According to federal charges, Seabrook
wanted to be paid for investing union money in a
hedge fund, and Rechnitz set up a deal for
Seabrook to secretly get up to $150,000 a year if
he invested $20 million in a Platinum Partners
fund.
Rechnitz admitted he delivered a down payment
of $60,000 to Seabrook in a Salvatore Ferragamo
bag.
Now that Rechnitz is talking and Seabrook and
hedge funder Murray Huberfeld have been
charged, investigators are likely focusing more
on the mayor and what Rechnitz knows about
him.
It could be a lot. He and his wife each
contributed the maximum $4,950 to de Blasio’s
2013 campaign and gathered $40,000 more from
other supporters. Rechnitz also gave $50,000 to
the mayor’s political slush fund, the Campaign
for One New York.
The fund is at the heart of the federal probe
because nearly all of its $4.36 million came from
big donors who had pending business at City
Hall.
After announcing the charges against Seabrook
and Huberfeld, US Attorney Preet Bharara
promised more to come. “We intend to be as
aggressive as ever in exposing corruption
wherever we find it, and it is too bad that we
seem to find it everywhere we look,” he said.
“You can expect to see me again.”
You can be sure he’s telling the truth, too.
Department of Education’s gibberish on Brooklyn
pre-K deal
The jabberwocky of the week comes from a city
flack: “We repurposed a valuable city-owned
property and renovated it into a state-of-the-art
facility to provide additional free, full-day, high-
quality pre-K seats in a high-demand
community.”
Translation: Educrats spent $6.5 million to fix up
a tiny Brooklyn storefront that will hold no more
than 18 pre-K students. As The Post reports,
that’s $362,222 per tot — if all 18 show up.
Trump stumping – for Hill
Reader Gary Mottola worries that Donald Trump
is screwing up big time.
“It’s been said that the Clintons have been lucky
in their enemies, and they could hit the jackpot
with Trump,” he writes. “He may end up being
remembered as the idiot who got Hillary elected
in a year where she should be easy to beat.”