Lance Dutson: First, Bill Clinton has a secret meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Then, FBI Director James Comey lets Hillary Clinton off the hook for what he described as “extremely careless” handling of her email. It looks like Bill Clinton’s silver tongue got the family out of another jam. Gotta love that blind justice.
Steven Biel: Please. James Comey is a registered Republican who gave max donations to John McCain and Mitt Romney. Plus, he has a sterling track record of prosecutorial integrity. Now you trash his reputation because he wouldn’t go along with your political hit job? Sad!
Lance: Funny, I remember how dozens of people with similar resumes saw their credibility spontaneously combust in the ’90s. Some of the most respected statesmen and women, including our own Bill Cohen, stood by Bill Clinton when he said “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” But this time the public gets the joke. She screwed up, she lied about it, and now she’s getting special treatment.
Steven: Special treatment? Colin Powell used personal email as secretary of state, and no one cared. The George W. Bush White House deleted 22 million emails, and no one cared. The truth is, Clinton’s email is the most overblown phony scandal since TravelGate. Remember that one? No one else does, either.
Lance: Of course. As Hillary said, “What difference does it make?” It’s just sex with an intern in the Oval Office. It’s just lying to the American people. It’s just classified emails illegally funneled to a private server that was wiped clean before investigators could see it. No big deal to the Clintons, but these things bother voters because we all know we would get fired or prosecuted if we did the same things.
Steven: Let’s dispense with this fiction that she got special treatment. To quote FBI Director Comey: “You know what would be a double standard? If she were prosecuted.” Jason Chaffetz, the House Oversight Committee chairman who’s now leading the attacks on Clinton, literally has his Gmail address on his congressional business card! You and I know staff and elected officials on Capitol Hill and Augusta who use personal email for work. And they do it for exact same reason Clinton did — to keep private things private.
Lance: I’m sorry, it’s just not true that “everyone does it.” Take Gen. David Petraeus. He managed to combine two Clinton trademarks into one — he broke the email rules with a woman he was having an affair with. And even though he was a celebrated war hero, he paid the price.
Steven: Comey shot down that comparison in front of Congress. Petraeus knowingly gave a huge trove of secret material to a biographer for personal profit and then lied to the FBI about it.
Lance: So if she didn’t do anything wrong, why didn’t she just tell the truth? She said there were no classified documents on her email, but there were. She said she saved all her work emails, but she didn’t. It all adds to the impression that she is either a dingdong or she’s dishonest.
Steven: I agree it’s a political problem, and I don’t particularly buy that she “did it for convenience.” My gut is that she did it because she didn’t want a replay of Ken Starr describing her husband’s bodily fluids on the front page of The New York Times. But politically she couldn’t say that either.
Lance: Actually, she could have. If there’s one thing Trump has proven, it’s that candor is gold right now. Instead she let it get to the brink of indictment, and that’s just bad politics.
Steven: Then again, she’s had one of the longest and most impactful careers in public life of the last 50 years and is on the verge of becoming the first woman ever elected president of the United States. So maybe she’s not such a dingdong.
Lance: She’s certainly been impactful, and unfortunately a big part of her impact has been to contribute to a massive erosion of public trust.
Steven Biel is former campaign director for MoveOn.org and president of the Portland-based political consulting firm Steven Biel Strategies. Lance Dutson, a principal of Red Hill Strategies, is a Republican communications consultant. He has served on the campaign teams of U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Kelly Ayotte, as well as the Maine Republican Party.