- Tuesday, June 21, 2016

It has now been a year since Donald Trump formally became a politician and declared his candidacy for the nation’s highest office. Actually, it has been a little over a year, because he was considering it for months before he declared from Trump Tower on June 16, 2015. What has he learned?

Well, he has learned that while there are developers who would try to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge, they do not hold a candle to politicians when it comes to lying, and that goes double for the mendacious political press. Moreover, he has learned that though there may be opportunists among his fellows in the real estate business they are veritable Good Samaritans when compared with the big-league opportunists in politics. Donald, it is too late now to back out of politics, but when it comes to lying, opportunism and general deceit, now you know. Politics takes the cake? Indeed, it takes all cakes.

Now you are up against the most corrupt politicians in American history, the Clintons. The Longs of Louisiana were pikers compared to them.

The Clintons have been at it for over 35 years and never spent a night in jail — not even for a DUI, not even for cocaine violations back in the 1980s. Bill’s hapless half-brother, Roger, took the rap for Bill, along with Bill’s campaign contributor, Dan Lasater. Throughout their years in Arkansas, Washington, D.C., and now on the world stage, the Clintons have amassed a vast fortune, first in cattle futures, then in crooked land deals, then in campaign finance and fundraising for the Clinton Foundation and Shake Down Project, Inc. Along the way, Bill has abused women and Hillary has covered for him with her private investigators (some of whom are in jail), her artful use of political pressure, and her influence with the press. More recently, Bill has spoken for huge fees here and abroad (Hillary has been on the circuit, too), some arranged by Clinton factotums in the Clinton-run State Department.

Just recently, we have discovered that Bill made $16.46 million from the so-called Laureate University while the Clinton State Department shelled out $55 million to a consortium run by Laureate founder and chairman Douglas Becker. There are so many scams originating from the Clinton family that Donald Trump with only a year in politics is overwhelmed. What will he make of her flouting of government rules for handling her emails? She has repeatedly lied about it, from the little white lies about using her private server for convenience to felonies about co-mingling Foundation business with State Department business and about the server’s security. Then there are her lies about Benghazi. Americans were killed because of her negligence. She even lied to the dead Americans’ families.

All of this is now known. At least it is known by people in politics and the media. Yet they have now made it clear that they are turning a deaf ear to the Clintons’ record of scandal. Former FBI Director Louis Freeh back in 1997, when asked during a congressional hearing if he had ever seen anything like the number of witnesses fleeing the country or pleading the Fifth Amendment during another of the Clintons’ scandals, said: “Actually, I have.” He proceeded to liken the spectacle to his “16 years doing organized crime cases in New York City .” There is a quote that one does not hear these days.

Now we have witnessed the murderous rage in Orlando where gays and Latinos were targeted for death by a “radical Islamist terrorist.” It is clear that the butcher was following the dictates of Shariah law as practiced in various parts of the Islamic world. Orlando was just another chapter in a saga that contains bloody precursors such as Fort Hood, the Boston Marathon and San Bernardino. The elites of the Democratic Party and the media are turning it into a debate about gun control, nomenclature and tweets by Donald Trump.

Very few observers have raised the question of Hillary Clinton accepting millions of dollars from Middle Eastern countries donating to the Clintons’ causes. Should the Clintons not at least give the money back?

Donald Trump in his year as a politician has had an opportunity to learn a lot. He has learned that politics in America today is a dirty business, all the more so since Hillary, upon clinching the Democratic nomination, has been given a clean slate from a media that intensifies its attacks on him. The unanswered question is: Has Donald learned enough to beat Hillary anyway? After all, he has learned to call her Crooked Hillary.

R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. is editor in chief of The American Spectator. He is author of “The Death of Liberalism,” published by Thomas Nelson Inc.

Copyright © 2024 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

Please read our comment policy before commenting.

Click to Read More and View Comments

Click to Hide