I hate to break the news to my Republican friends, but they have more or less permanently forfeited their right to complain about any Democratic investigations.
Why do I say that? Because between the House, Senate, and Executive Branch, Hillary was investigated at least a dozen times over Benghazi and her email server, which are nothing compared to what Trump’s administration is being investigated for.
The Benghazi Investigation
Let’s start with the Benghazi investigation. Nobody actually remembers what Hillary was being investigated for.
- On September 11, 2012, the United States diplomatic compound in Benghazi (not the embassy) was attacked by members of a Libyan Islamic militant group.
- The US military response was slow and confused, including questions about whether the US should wait for the Libyan regular forces to head up the response action. The American Ambassador (John Stevens) and three other Americans died in the attacks.
- The U.S. Senate Select Committee and five House Committees (Armed Services, Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, Judiciary, and Oversight and Government Reform) all investigated the attack, and in particular whether the Obama administration willfully perpetuated a deliberately misleading and incomplete narrative that the attacks evolved from a political demonstration caused by a YouTube video (the Innocence of Muslims).
While there were aspects of the U.S. response that were unsatisfactory, nothing was ever uncovered by any of these investigations (and those conducted by the State Department or FBI) that ever found any fault with Hillary Clinton.
The Email Server Investigation
As we know, Hillary Clinton’s use of her family’s private email server for official communications (rather than using official State Department email accounts) drew criticism and was found to have used “poor judgment” by James Comey and the FBI. The practice was also criticized by the Inspector General for the State Department and by Committee’s controlled by Republicans in the House and Senate. However, it should be noted that:
- While Hillary’s private server was at risk, there is no evidence that the server was ever hacked.
- The emails that WikiLeaks leaked during the 2016 Presidential campaign were not pilfered from Hillary’s email server, but from DNC campaign accounts.
- Donald Trump uses an unsecured Blackberry on a regular basis, and Ivanka Trump has also used a private email account for official business.
This was clearly a mistake on Hillary’s part, but not a mistake that had any obvious consequences.
The Mueller Investigation
The Mueller investigation is about something much more serious: it is a United States law enforcement and counterintelligence investigation of the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
And in particular, it addresses the question of whether members of Trump’s campaign team and Presidential administration colluded with the Russian government — our #1 enemy, lest we forget — in trying to get Trump elected.
In short, there is no comparison between the relatively inconsequential things that Hillary was charged with doing and the very serious allegations against the Trump administration.
Since January 2019, Mueller has publicly initiated criminal proceedings against 34 people—seven U.S. nationals, 26 Russian nationals, and one Dutch national. (And how many criminal proceedings were brought against Hillary and company? Zero!)
Of course, Mueller’s investigation is not finished yet and he is not done yet indicting those being investigated.
Trump’s Complaints
Donald Trump did, of course, poetically complain in his State of the Union address:
If there is going to be peace and legislation,
there cannot be war and investigation.
It just doesn't work that way!
I got news for you Donald: fuck you. You and your cronies are being investigated for something real, something consequential, something which undermined our democratic system, not the two-bit shit that Hillary was investigated for over and over again.
And for my Republican friends who don’t like that the Donald and his administration is being investigated this much, suck it up, snowflakes. We’re just getting started. You ain’t seen nothing yet!