Ben Ghazi and the missing emails ended as fizzles and fiascos, but they still hurt Hillary

Remember Ben Ghazi?  Those hearings went on and on forever in a failed attempt to pin the tragedy on Hillary Clinton.  A certain Representative made his national mark with his aggressive appearance on that committee.  That same person is now trying to promote another one that also involves the state department. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo He is https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/11/pompeo-has-been-undermining-the-state-department-since-the-benghazi-investigation/

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/22/20924795/hillary-clinton-emails-new-york-times-state-department

"The State Department’s report reaches two broad conclusions. Clinton’s “use of a private email system to conduct official business added an increased degree of risk” that classified information would be compromised. But “there was no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information.”

In 2016, the State Department’s inspector general also determined that Clinton’s Republican predecessors, Secretaries Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, also received classified information on their personal email accounts."

What Bridgegate, Ben Ghazi, IRS hearings have in common: if not witch hunting, low prosecutoral standards.

Gov. Chris Christie’s Bridgegate,  Ben Ghazi, and IRS House hearings have much in common. They raise the issue of whether hearings and  investigations are motivated by sincere  and fair  truth finding or are  witch hunting to make a political point. If it is  not witch hunting, to say the least they represent low prosecutoral standards.

The chairman of the select committee to investigate Ben Ghazi , Rep. Trey  Gowdy (R-SC ) stated  on a recent cable talk show that he was a former prosecutor and he knew what was fair; therefore he would run the hearings fairly. I question his premise.

There are three motivations for prosecution.  One is to seek the truth  or another  to accomplish some civic  good. The other is to make a political point. In Ben Ghazi, the only motivation stated by the chair is to find out whether there was a cover up or lies, with evidence  after eight  hearings and pages of documentation without  firm evidence of a  smoking gun to pin a cover up  on the President or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. A recently released administration  memo was general commentary of unrest in the Arab Spring , not specific to Ben Ghazi.

 Prosecutor Gowdy is out to justify GOP suspicions of a smoking gun but not to see whether funds or methods to increase protection of State Department personnel needs to be beefed up. That at minimum smells of   political witch hunting.

I spent over six years heading the Denver district attorney’s  unit investigating complaints from the public  regarding white collar and consumer crimes.  I wrestled with the fairness issue every day. Later, I led  an investigation into campaign finance abuses in my role as an election commissioner in Denver.  If anything, I gained a healthy respect for district attorneys who took the fairness issue seriously and those who did not.

The late Dale Tooley was a Denver  district attorney who did not hunt witches.  He refused to go forward with prosecutions  that not only did not have tangible evidence of probable cause to believe a crime was committed, but which also  lacked enough evidence to result in a probable conviction.   Grand juries, held in secret,  were not called on unless   there was  confidence the grand jury would find probable cause. His standards were high  and he did not want to waste taxpayers’ money on wild goose chases.

 Congressional hearings are similar to grand juries. Unlike the grand jury system, however, they are open to the public and media  and can be abused to make political points and provide grandstanding opportunities for politicians seeking re-election.

 In any case, those being accused could seek protection  under the 5^th amendment to the Constitution and not have to testify against themselves.  That particular right is  being violated unfairly  in Republican dominated  House hearings on whether the director of an Ohio IRS office had gone after right leaning political organizations seeking tax exemptions.  The committee wants to send her to jail for taking the 5^th.

The Christie affair also  raises prosecutoral motivation questions, except hearings and investigations conducted by truly independent investigators are not yet complete. The potential for abuse, however, is there since so much of the issue is involved in his political aspirations to run for President.

A version of this appeared in the print edition of the www.skyhidailynews.com  5/23/2014

Scandal...the most over used and abused word in politics

Calling every  failing of those in high places  “scandals”   has become the most overused  and abused  word in politics   these past 12 months. .   Politicians beware.  Voters are smarter than you think.  All scandals are not equal and you may be able to fool some  voters part of the time, but not all  voters all of the time. 

Since Watergate, all those seeking to take down a powerful person have found scandal mongering to be the most effective tool in the political arsenal. 24/7 ideologically partisan news channels and eager beaver investigative reporters are the megaphones, hoping to make  any shortcoming the equal of Watergate by call it a “scandal”, too. Calling it one does not make it one.  

 Voters have shown the ability to tell the difference between a serious scandal, and one that is a lesser offense that is not a game changer.  The sexual misconduct of Pres. Bill Clinton may have gotten him impeached , his policies and execution of his duties may have been delayed, but they were  not stopped. Voters saw through the politics of that impeachment process: an attempt to cripple a leader with morals charges  to block his agenda. In contrast, Watergate coverup and dirty deeds traced directly to Pres. Richard Nixon’s scheming  resulted in his resignation to avoid impeachment.

Hillary Clinton and   Ben Ghazi and New Jersey Governor  Christ Christie’s Bridgegate, and rogue IRS agents discriminating against conservatives groups  in a distant office  are  hawked to media consumers as equally serious “scandals”.  These  share very different  DNA, one about political hard ball  and charges of misuse of power  by Christie’s officials  and another, Clinton, about  failure to use power and misjudgments of underlings and even of a victim himself.  True, this resulted in four dead Americans. IRS discrimination against conservative groups were never traced to Pres. Obama.  What all  have in common is they are as much about the presidential race in 2016  and midterms 2014  and the fodder they give potential opponents.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said at his epic news conference,  “politics ain’t beanbag” as he defended  himself against charges his staff took  revenge on political “enemies”  by blocking traffic on  the George Washington Bridge. New accusations that  he used rewarding of Hurricane Sandy repair funds as a bludgeon are emerging   So far it looks like he plays politics with a hockey puck. Whether it rises to a crime and he is found to hold the smoking gun is not yet known nor is it to be automatically assumed.  Voters should wait and see.

Wait and see about Ben Ghazi should be over. The bi-partisan  report  issued in January by the Senate Intelligence Committee  moved Ben Ghazi from the Fox chatterers to the main stream topic, and   it did pin blame on the State Department .  The decisions that contributed to the tragedy were never traced to policy directives from  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The buck did not get passed to her.   But for now  Ben Ghazi   becomes a continuing “scandal”  in the eyes of the GOP .  Some Republicans vowed  just to ignore the report and to keep on putting a fictitious  smoking gun in her hands. Most voters will not buy that line. The evidence is just not there.