I’m fairly sure that when William Shakespeare penned the phrase “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” he did not have in mind the constant cycle of scandals that envelop Bill and Hillary Clinton. But the phrase easily applies.
These are the opening sentences of a Boston Globe opinion piece that made my morning. In example after example, author Michael Cohen clarifies that the Clinton Foundation emails do not, in fact, suggest any wrongdoing. In fact, just the opposite:
The scandal here seems to be that people who gave money to the Clinton Foundation had e-mails sent to the Clinton State Department requesting favors that were repeatedly denied.
The now well-known example is illustrative:
• In 2009, Clinton Foundation “top honcho” Doug Band reaches out to Clinton’s assistant at the State Department, Huma Abedin.
• The goal:
to “put a Nigerian businessman of Lebanese descent named Gilbert Chagoury – who had donated to the Clinton Foundation — in touch with ‘the substance person re: Lebanon.’ Chagoury apparently wanted to pass along information about upcoming elections in Lebanon. Considering that State Department diplomats glean information and intelligence from civil society leaders, activists, and business people on a regular basis there’s nothing particularly untoward about the ask.”
• the result:
“Abedin told Band she’d reach out to Jeffrey Feltman, the acting assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs at the time. Yet, according to a Washington Post article, Feltman says he never met or spoke to Chagoury, and ‘No one ever told me he was seeking me out.’ “
So: Clinton Foundation asks for help with donor, and doesn’t get it.
This is the pattern. Other examples (as cited from WaPo):
• A sports executive and Clinton Foundation donor “wanted help getting a visa for a British soccer player with a criminal past.”
• U2’s Bono, “a regular at foundation events, wanted high-level help broadcasting a live link to the International Space Station during concerts.”
• “Democratic donor and activist Joyce Aboussie of St. Louis wrote to Abedin requesting a meeting between Clinton and a top executive of St. Louis-based Peabody Energy.”
• the results: no evidence of any help or access.
I particularly like Cohen’s succinct remark about these and other “questions” regarding Clinton’s actions as Secretary of State:
That … questions were raised and answered in a way that exonerated Mrs. Clinton is seemingly secondary to the fact that questions had been raised. Even when cleared of wrongdoing, the Clintons cannot escape the ever-creeping shadow of the dark insinuations of their political enemies.
My take is that attacks about Clinton’s record indicate that Republicans know that her time as Secretary of State is in fact one of her greatest political assets. They are part of Karl “turd blossom” Rove’s standard political playbook: attack your opponents strengths, not just their weaknesses. The same logic applies to GOP attacks directed toward the Clinton Foundation.
In a 2012 CNN article, the strategy is summed up perfectly and is proving to be quite apt in 2016:
The premise is simple: In a political environment where perception often trumps policy, mount early challenges to your opponent's strongest attributes to raise questions and create an alternative image in the minds of voters.
I should add that Cohen agrees that if she wins in November, the Clinton Foundation should be wound down, to avoid the risk of apparent conflict of interest.
But such a decision shouldn’t mask the fact that the foundation has done extraordinary work as a philanthropic organization, from renegotiating the cost of HIV drugs to reducing childhood obesity to mitigating the impact of climate change. That’s the real story of the Clinton Foundation, not spurious and evidence-free allegations that donations to the foundation gave donors special access to State Department officials or preferential treatment.