Dear Tom,
My Hillary-supporting friends are driving me crazy! The latest thing they are saying is "Show me some proof Clinton Foundation did quid-pro-quo ... name me corporations/actors that were q-p-q ... show me some proof Hillary was aware." How can I respond to this? Is there an article that proves quid pro quo?
K.P.
Dear K.P.,
Asking for a "quid pro quo" is an unfair debate tactic. You're not a prosecuting attorney with subpoena power, and even if you were, the Clintons are adept at wiggling out of "smoking guns." The FBI is in an uproar over this right now. The issue is not what you or I or the FBI can prove in court, the issue is whether there is an appearance of impropriety or corruption. I'd say taking $153 million in speaking fees (the Clintons' combined haul since the early '00s) while remaining in politics, capable of returning favors, is improper.
The Clinton Foundation Timeline (maintained by a Democrat) aggregates so many suspect maneuvers that by the time you've finished reading the smell is overpowering. Here's just one example. It's not what Hillary did or didn't do at State, it's Bill selling himself for access to world leaders or other powerful contacts under cover of a charity.
Also see this review by a left-leaning commenter of the right-wing film Clinton Cash (links are in my post). She finds support for a lot of what's said. In particular, scroll down on this page to the section called "Red Shadows: Kazakhstan, Uranium One & the Long Arm of Vladimir Putin." Pretty outrageous, especially in light of all the red-baiting the Clintons have been doing to distract from the Wikileaks revelations.
It's fine if our Hillary-supporting friends want to ignore all this but when they start insisting we prove Hillary's guilt according to legal standards they are just jerking us around. (I get this too.) If this were a Bush no one would demand a quid pro quo -- the appearance of corruption would be enough. Proving quid pro quo is much harder if potential evidence is on a private email server and was destroyed as "personal correspondence" -- to insist that we resuscitate that information is especially galling.
Tom