In Defense Of Hillary Clinton

(This caricature of Hillary Clinton is by the inimitable DonkeyHotey.)

Hillary Clinton is not yet a candidate for any political office, and won't be until at least next month (if not later), but that hasn't stopped her political enemies from trying to tear her down. In the last couple of weeks, they have come up with new accusations that they hope will make her look like an evil and conniving person.

Right-wingers are engaging in this character assassination because they know that none of their potential candidates currently stand a chance of beating Clinton in a head-to-head battle for the presidency -- and some on the left have joined them (primarily those still begging Senator Warren to enter the Democratic race for president).

Last week, they accused Clinton of receiving funds from foreign governments, and particularly pointed to a donation of about $500,000 from Algeria (not generally viewed as a friend of the United States). The implication was that Clinton was selling her influence to foreign countries to advance her own interests.

They might have had a case, if Clinton had used any of those funds for her own enrichment or to further her political career -- but she didn't. Every penny of that money went to the Clinton Foundation -- a charity that tries to help people around the world. The money from Algeria was for the earthquake victims in Haiti, and that's exactly where all of it went.

Charities can't be too particular about who donates to them, because that funding is too hard to get -- and even if it comes from an unsavory source (like the government of Algeria), they know it can be put to good use helping people. In addition, the Clinton Foundation has been very open about who is contributing to them. I think Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe put it best when he said:

"If the biggest attack on Hillary's going to be that she raised too much money for her charity, okay, I'll take that. No one's alleging anything beyond that she raised money and people gave her money and foreign governments gave her money. At the end of the day, that's fine. It went to a charity. It helped a lot of people."

When that charge fizzled, Clinton detractors came up with a new charge this week. They accused of her using her own private e-mail account rather than a government account while she was Secretary of State. The implication was that she was trying to hide something nefarious by using a private account, because the public didn't have access to that account -- and some even implied she may have broken the law by using a private account. That's pure horse-hockey. Here are the facts:

* Clinton was not the only Secretary of State to use a private e-mail account. Her predecessor, Colin Powell did the same thing.

* No law was broken, since the law requiring a government account be used was not passed and signed into law until 2014 -- about two years after Clinton left government service.

* Nothing was hidden, since all e-mails pertaining to government business was sent to employees using government computers and accounts (and they were all saved).

* The National Archives requested those e-mails, and received them -- more than 55,000 e-mails. Those were the e-mails that pertained to government business, and made up over 90% of the e-mails she sent while Secretary of State. Those e-mails are now available to anyone who requests them from the National Archives.

* The other 10% or so of e-mails pertained to her private family matters (like e-mailing her daughter on the flowers for her wedding). None of her critics, or anyone else, has the right to view those e-mails (anymore than they would have the right to view your own personal e-mails).

The truth is that there's neither smoke nor fire here -- just sound and fury, signifying nothing. Hillary Clinton did nothing wrong in either of these two cases. Her critics, on both the right and left, are going to have to do a lot better than this to bring her down.

Jeb Bush also used a private e-mail service when governor of Florida, and has bragged that he turned over all of those e-mails after leaving office. That's not exactly true. He turned over those relating to his government service, and withheld those pertaining to his family life -- exactly as Hillary Clinton did. Bush has been praised for his actions, while Clinton is being criticized -- and that is just wrong.