Bill Clinton is just as guilty of ‘election interference’ as Trump if proven true

The Alvin Bragg case has gotten grander at trial, but also more ridiculous.

The Manhattan district attorney has a meaningless business-records misdemeanor wrapped within a theory about an alleged Trump conspiracy to defraud the voters by denying them disparaging information before the election and obscuring after the fact the payments that were used to do so. 

Bragg is accusing former President Donald Trump, in effect, of stealing the election. 

He, thus, joins all the other progressives who have denied the legitimacy of Trump’s 2016 election, although he finds the culprit not in Russia (at least not in this case) but in the shady maneuverings around Stormy Daniels. 

If this is the standard by which we judge elections, we need to go back and conclude that Bill Clinton wasn’t elected legitimately in 1992, either. 

Clinton had the same underlying problem as Trump — namely, women with embarrassing stories to tell — but the opposite tabloid dynamic; the tabloids were trying to get Clinton, whereas the National Enquirer was trying to protect Trump. 

The Clinton campaign fought to silence or discredit women as necessary.

Clinton’s operatives had the foresight — there’s nothing like planning ahead — to secure affidavits of denial from women rumored to have had affairs with Clinton.

The truth didn’t matter here, of course. They just wanted the exculpatory statements.

So, when the Star tabloid reported that five Arkansas women, including one named Gennifer Flowers, had had affairs with Clinton, the campaign was ready. 

According to George Stephanopoulos, the campaign’s strategy initially was to attack the tabloid messenger and use previously signed affidavits to undermine the story. 

Then, Flowers shifted from denying the affair to confirming it in detail. Her story had to be destroyed.

Again, everyone knew what they were doing, which was keeping the truth from the voters in the service of what they considered a higher good.

“I couldn’t bear the thought that an old dalliance dredged up by a tabloid would curtail the professional experience of my life, or the promise I saw in Clinton,” Stephanopoulos wrote in his memoir. 

Regardless, clearly the Clinton campaign was engaged in what is now called “election interference.”

There was much more.

State troopers were involved in procuring women for Clinton and had been pressured…

for Clinton. Clinton loyalist named Buddy Young told a trooper to keep quiet, indicating knowledge of other scandals.
Central to Clinton’s operation was the private detective Jack Palladino.
Palladino contacted women to get them to deny or discredit their stories. There was a strategy to suppress allegations and spend money on damage control.
FEC filings were manipulated to hide payments. All campaigns try to keep information away from voters and some violations are overlooked, but Alvin Bragg’s allegations against Trump are a reflection of manipulation in past elections. Bill Clinton’s ethical issues include a series of lapses including 1992 election.
Twitter account: @RichLowry