Who stole Hillary s cheese: Putin, Comey or Huma? (Washington Diary)

Washington May 6 (IANS) At last Hillary Clinton is out of the woods smugly telling Americans that had election been held 12 days earlier I would be your President and not that brash billionaire Donald Trump.


She took absolute personal responsibility for her stunning loss to the political novice even as she claimed Russian President Vladimir Putin FBI director James Comey and misogyny stole the election from her.

She was cruising to a victory before WikiLeaks started making embarrassing disclosures from her campaign chief s emails hacked by Putin s spooks and Comey reopened a probe into her own email saga Clinton suggested.

But the former Secretary of State did not say why she did not campaign in the battleground states of Wisconsin and Michigan or woo Trump supporters whom she dismissed as a basket of deplorables.

She also did not say why she used a f---ing insane private server as a top desi aide Neera Tanden called it as President Barack Obama s top diplomat that led to the FBI probe in the first place.

Nor would she say why in the midst of the investigation hubby Bill by chance went over to Attorney General Loretta Lynch s plane last July to say hello and chat about their grandkids and golf.

That meeting was the capper for Comey as he would tell senators a day after Clinton s charge when he decided that the Justice department cannot by itself credibly end this.

It was then that he publicly rebuked her for being extremely careless in guarding the nation s secrets and yet letting her go scot free saying no reasonable prosecutor would charge her.

But Comey also told the Republican-controlled Congress that he would not hesitate to reopen the probe if and when new material turned up.

And so there was the October surprise just 11 days before the November 8 election when his team found thousands of classified Clinton e-mails on the computer of her trusted aide Huma Abedin s husband Anthony Weiner.

Clinton s desi second daughter appears to have had a regular practice of forwarding emails to Weiner under investigation for a sexting scandal for taking out printouts for her boss as Comey would later tell senators.

Faced with a bad or catastrophic decision to speak or conceal he chose the former Comey asserted saying concealment in my view would have been catastrophic and death of FBI.

It makes me mildly nauseous to think that we might have had some impact on the election he testified. But honestly it wouldn t change the decision.

But the top cop who has been retained in his job by Trump also declined to say another peep about an investigation into Trump campaign s contacts with Russia until we re done.

That s the way we handled the Clinton investigation as well Comey claimed dismissing Democrats charge of using double standards for the two presidential rivals.

Trump himself brushed aside Clinton s claim with a tweet: Comey was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds!

The phony Trump/Russia story was an excuse used by the Democrats as justification for losing the election he asserted Perhaps Trump just ran a great campaign?

Trump might have already hit the nail on the head when he thanked the Abedins when Comey s October surprise suddenly lifted his stock. Good job Huma thank you Weiner he then tweeted.

The President then returned to his favourite pastime of undoing the Obama legacy with his first major legislative victory with the House passing a bill to repeal and replace his predecessor s disastrous signature healthcare law dubbed Obamacare.

Using The Art of the Deal he also won Congressional approval for a $1.1 trillion budget to keep the government going until end-September by foregoing funds for that big beautiful wall on the border with Mexico.

Pundits dismissed his Trumpcare victory as pyrrhic suggesting the Republicans would pay a high political price as some House Democrats waved them farewell with a pop song: Na na na na hey hey hey goodbye.

But a victory may remain a distant dream for the Democrats until they can say Na na na na to Clinton who has now styled herself part of the resistance.

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)

--IANS
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