Twice-failed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton — who escaped prosecution in 2016 for mishandling classified data and destroying evidence — believes that President Donald Trump should have been indicted for obstruction of justice, and was saved only by his status as a sitting president.
Fielding questions at the Time 100 Summit in New York on Tuesday, Clinton addressed Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report for the first time in public.
“I think there’s enough there that any other person who had engaged in those acts would certainly have been indicted,” she said. “But because of the rule in the Justice Department that you can’t indict a sitting president, the whole matter of obstruction was very directly sent to the Congress.”
Lock him up?
It’s no secret that Clinton believed Trump colluded with Russia to hack into her campaign’s emails to destroy her chances in the 2016 presidential race. Now that the Mueller report has debunked this conspiracy theory, Clinton has invested herself fully in the obstruction theory.
But did Mueller “very directly” send “the whole matter of obstruction” to Congress, as Clinton and many Democrats are suggesting? The former secretary of State is no doubt referring to a single sentence in the 448-page special counsel report, which explains that “Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President’s corrupt exercise of the powers of office” in accordance with the Constitution.
However, George Washington University Law School Professor Randall D. Eliason insists that Clinton and others have “misinterpreted” this statement, which was only meant as a narrow response to arguments from Trump’s attorneys that he cannot be prosecuted for legal executive action.
“[A]lthough the report may read like an impeachment referral, Mueller, of all people, knows that was not his job,” Eliason wrote. But Clinton clearly disagrees with this assessment.
“If you read that part of the report, it could not be clearer. As I read basically what I thought it was saying is, ‘Look we think he obstructed justice here are 11 examples of why we think he obstructed justice but we are under the control of the Justice Department, and their rule is you can’t indict,’” she explained during Tuesday’s Q&A session.
Pot meets kettle
Think about this for a moment: The Mueller report proves that Trump is not guilty of collusion — a false allegation that survived for so long thanks in part to political opposition research funded by the Clinton campaign. But now that Trump has been cleared, Clinton wants to see him face impeachment proceedings for possibly obstructing the unwarranted investigation that she helped create.
Clinton, who destroyed evidence under subpoena with BleachBit software and hammers, believes that Congress needs to take a closer look at whether or not Trump obstructed justice.
What evidence did Trump’s staff physically destroy to throw investigators off of their trail? None. In fact, other than former FBI Director James Comey, who was fired for incompetence, Trump never actually dismissed anyone tied to the investigation, and he rescinded any orders to do so once he received legal advice from his attorneys.
In the absence of evidence actually proving obstruction of justice, Clinton called on Congress to do what she failed to accomplish in 2016: keep Trump out of the White House.
“We do have checks and balances in America, and there is this thing called Congress,” she said. “You could not be more explicit than, ‘Please, look at this. You may conclude it doesn’t rise to an impeachable offense, that’s your job, but I’m giving this to you.'”
Fantasy land
But the former first lady is putting words into Mueller’s mouth.
“He wasn’t calling on Congress to pick up the ball and convene impeachment hearings,” Eliason explained. “He was stating his legal conclusion that it is constitutional for Congress to enact obstruction of justice laws that apply to a president’s official actions carried out for a corrupt reason — just as it would be a constitutional exercise of the separation of powers for a federal court to adjudicate such a case.”
Now that Mrs. Clinton’s theory that Trump is a Kremlin “puppet” has died on the vine, she has committed herself fully to the obstruction canard. But like many Democrats from the anti-Trump “resistance” she founded, the former first lady is now suggesting that the Mueller report is one giant, figurative wink from the special counsel, asking Congress to take over where his hands are tied.
It is time for America to move from this fake Russia collusion hoax. But in order for that to happen, Clinton and her fellow Democrats must move on from her 2016 defeat — once and for all.
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