I'm disappointed in the uproar over the brief chat President Clinton had with AG Loretta Lynch. That Clinton approached Lynch was a mistake, given today's hysterical political environment. But it was a thoughtless mistake, not a deliberate attempt to undermine justice.
President Clinton and AG Lynch know each other. They're at the same airport at the same time. The temperature on the tarmac was over 100 degrees. Clinton wants to say hello to an old friend, brag about his new grandkid. Lynch, being the decent person she is, did not slam the door in his face.
They talked about grandkids, golf, and former AG Janet Reno. And then they parted. It's just that simple. President Clinton and AG Lynch are friends, they have each other's contact information. If they had wanted to conspire to undermine Justice, they could easily do so in circumstances other than broad daylight, in front of hundreds of people, with the Press in attendance.
Common sense. I'm asking people to exercise common sense. If you can't be fair, at least be sensible.
AG Lynch issued a statement today assuring people she will have no input into the DOJ/FBI State email investigation. Evidently, she had already been planning to do this, to ensure there would be no taint to the decision. This is just the way Loretta Lynch is.
That the Republicans are all over this controversy is no surprise; they'll do anything to drive attention away from their appalling Presidential candidate. But I'm disappointed in the Democrats who are using this to garner attention for themselves. AG Lynch does not deserve this from them.
I'm also frustrated with the media. I was watching NBC news last night, and Andrea Mitchell covered this story, as several of the news outlets did. But she referenced the Judicial Watch demand for an OIG investigation.
NBC did not take one moment, not one, to bring in any of their own legal experts who could have explained that Lynch did absolutely nothing wrong, and the OIG is not going to waste resources on what is nothing more than a casual 30 minute chit chat. This was Judicial Watch playing the game they always play, and NBC latched on to the bait like a hungry fish going after a particularly tasty-looking lure.
Yet Mitchell, on MSNBC, presents a completely different view of the event...that all the fuss about the meeting is yet another conspiracy theory, and all that happened was a casual meeting between two friends. Same person, two completely different views. Is this the optics we hear so much about?
The FBI/DOJ investigation is about the State Department's handling of secure emails; Hillary Clinton is not the focus of the investigation. Two friends met at an airport and talked grandkids. The only "bad optics" in place, are from people can't see clearly, or who won't see clearly.
