Today a federal appeals court will hear a case brought by Judicial Watch on whether 238 pages of documents concerning Hillary Clinton’s possible involvement in the Whitewater scandal should be made public. Judicial Watch believes that the documents include drafts of indictments alleging that Hillary provided false information and withheld information from those in charge of investigating the scandal.
Admittedly, this sounds like old news. However, the original Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request was made by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch in March of 2015, well before the presidential election of 2016. In October of 2015, Judicial Watch sued the National Archives and Records Administration for release of those documents. The National Archives has kept the records secret thus far due to reasons of grand jury secrecy, as well as to maintain Clinton’s personal privacy.
Judicial Watch argues that the National Archives has no grounds to keep the documents private since “an enormous amount of grand jury and other information from the independent counsel’s investigation of Clinton has already been made public.”
To quickly review, the Whitewater scandal was a real estate scheme that foreshadowed the sub-prime mortgage crisis of the 2000s. The Whitewater Development Corporation was owned half by the Clintons and half by Jim and Susan McDougal. Jim was also the primary partner of Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan Association, which partnered with the Whitewater group offering loans to people who couldn’t afford the payments. When homeowners defaulted, the corporation quickly foreclosed and resold the property. In the end, the scheme fizzled, the Whitewater Development Corporation and the Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan both failed, and the Clintons and the McDougals lost their initial $200,000 investment.
Fifteen people associated with the scandal, including the Clintons’ partners Jim and Susan McDougal and then-Governor of Arkansas Jim Guy Tucker, were convicted of crimes in the scandal. Bill Clinton later pardoned four of those convicted, including Susan McDougal.
But why dig all this up more than 20 years after the scandal broke and over 30 years since the events actually happened?
Perhaps if the former first lady and failed presidential candidate would just go away, such requests as the one made by Judicial Watch would go away as well. However, Hillary seems intent on staying in the spotlight for as long as she can — however she can.
With those types of pronouncements, Hillary Clinton’s past peccadillos should remain in the “fair game” category. People need to be reminded of how duplicitous she has been in the past, so that any possible future she might have in public office can be successfully discouraged.
In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, many supporters of Mrs. Clinton claimed that her loss was all about James Comey and her illegal e-mail server. Actually, the private e-mail server was more than enough to disqualify her from office, since its existence pointed to either incredible incompetence or an imperial attitude that rules simply did not apply to her. But her lack of fitness for office is about so much more than just that e-mail server.
Thus, the possible release of these alleged drafted indictments seems well timed, reminding her supporters that that list of Hillary’s shady behavior goes back more than a quarter of a decade. From Travelgate to lost billing records to bimbo eruptions to the removal of art from the White House to Sydney Blumenthal to Benghazi, Hillary Clinton has proven time and again that she is absolutely not to be trusted.
