Last February, Donald Trump and his surrogates began making a comparison between Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and the break-in at Democratic Headquarters and the subsequent cover-up by the committee to re-elect Richard Nixon president.  Fox News commentator Andrew Napolitano suggested the unavailability of  every email “was far worse than an 18-and-a-half-minute gap on President Nixon’s internal office recording  equipment.”  Napolitano, who once served as a New Jersey Superior Court Judge, did not recognize the fact Nixon’s efforts to withhold information were related to an actual crime. And I still find it hypocritical those most disgusted with Clinton’s actions do not hold Dick Cheney, who failed to archive ANY of the his emails leading up to the Iraq war, to the same standard.

I thought the comparison was a stretch until this past weekend when Democrats on the house committee investigating the email issue released one of Colin Powell’s emails to Secretary Clinton.  This new information made me realize the resemblance between these two events is less about who did what but the veracity of the principals.  On June 3, 1983, White House counsel John Dean testified before the Senate select committee investigating Watergate.  He told the panel he had warned Nixon further efforts at cover-up would have disastrous results.

I began by telling the president that there was a cancer growing on the presidency and that if the cancer was not removed the president himself would be killed by it.  

Following his testimony, other participants in the scandal vowed no such conversation took place and Dean was attempting to cover his posterior to avoid a potential jail sentence.  In other words, at this point it was just a case of he said/they said.  That is, until Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of a self-activated recording system in the oval office.  And a March 21, 1973 conversation between Dean and Nixon included the following:

…there’s no doubt about the seriousness of the problem we’re, we’ve got. We have a cancer–within, close to the Presidency, that’s growing. It’s growing daily. It’s compounding, it grows geometrically now because it compounds itself.

From that point on Dean’s account of the entire scandal was viewed as the most reliable.  His accurate recollection of this conversation resulted in his being given the benefit of the doubt on other points on which he testified.

Which brings us to Hillary Clinton and her FBI testimony.  On August 31, 2016 the New York Times reported Clinton “told investigators that former Secretary of State Colin Powell had advised her to use a personal email account.”  Four days later, the Miami Herald quoted Powell as saying Clinton was “using the private email server for a year before I sent her a memo telling her what I did.”  One more case of she said/he said.

There is only one problem.  Last week a January 23, 2009 email exchange between Powell and Clinton, part of the record the FBI turned over to the House committee on Benghazi, was made public.  NOTE:  This is only one day after Clinton is sworn in as secretary of state, not a year as Powell had claimed.  (Source:  CNN.com January 22, 2009)

Clinton had asked Powell whether he used a BlackBerry.  Here are excerpts from his reply.

I didn’t have a BlackBerry.  What I did do was have a personal computer that was hooked up to a private phone line (sounds ancient).  So I could communicate with a wide range of friends directly without it going through the State Department servers.  I even used it to do business with some foreign leaders and some of the senior folks in the Department on their personal email accounts.  I did the same thing on the road in hotels.

However, there is a real danger.  If it is public that you have a BlackBerry and it it (sic) government and you are using it, government or not, to do business, it may become an official record and subject to the law.  Reading about the President’s BB rules this morning, it sounds like it won’t be as useful as it used to be.  Be very careful.  I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data.

As with John Dean, this is no longer an instance of she said/he said.  Clinton’s recollection of the timing and content of their exchange is much more accurate than Powell’s as proven by this source document.  This in no way absolves Clinton of other instances when she and her campaign have been less than transparent.  But, when FBI Director James Comey testified Clinton had not lied to the FBI during her three hours of testimony, this element of the investigation affirms Comey’s assessment.  Like Dean, she deserves the benefit of the doubt.

Equally egregious, we learned yesterday Powell warned Clinton’s personal attorney Cheryl Mills, in a March 19, 2016 email, not to drag him into the email fiasco.  Quote: “Hillary’s Mafia keeps trying to suck me into it.”  Again, this is contrary to the facts.  When questioned about the use of private emails on 60 Minutes, Clinton said she had received advice about using non-official systems, but did not name Powell.  And based on historical precedence, Clinton assumed her testimony before the FBI and supporting documents would not be made public.  If Secretary Powell has anyone to blame, he should be pointing fingers at the House Benghazi committee which demanded the FBI turn over their notes and documents associated with Clinton’s testimony.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Let me introduce you to Evelyn Farkas.  In September 2015, Dr. Farkas resigned as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia after five years in the Obama administration.  Previously she served as executive director of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction and staff member to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Politico.com reported Dr. Farkas’ departure was in part due to divisions within the Defense Department over the U.S. response to Russian incursions into Ukraine.  The reporter covering this story provided the following synopsis of the two perspectives.

On one side are those who are open to providing lethal aid to Ukraine, including Obama’s own secretary of Defense, Ash Carter. On the other side are doves including Obama himself, who want to support Ukraine with non-lethal equipment but who fear that arming Ukraine against Russia might prompt an escalation that could bring the long-simmering crisis to a boil.

So far, the president has constrained the U.S. response, opting to provide vehicles, counter-mortar radars, body armor and other such equipment — but not the anti-tank missiles or other weapons Ukraine really wants.

Until today, I had no idea who Dr. Farkas was until she appeared on Morning Joe.  It became clear which side she was on as she suggested the United States could be doing more to counter Russian and Chinese attempts to take control of disputed territory.  To make her point, she referenced President Theodore Roosevelt’s famous quote, saying (and I’m not making this up), “Speak strongly and carry a big stick!”  For the record, no one corrected her although I assume someone at the table knew TR had actually said , “Speak SOFTLY and carry a big stick!”

Perhaps this was just a simple misstatement as I assume she too knows the correct citation.  But what if it was a Freudian slip?  Why is this important?  Because when you follow TR verbatim, you get a nuclear agreement with Iran and Syria to dispose of it’s chemical weapons without firing a shot.  But if you approach foreign relations and national security from a perspective in which bluster and overwhelming military power go hand in hand, you get the Iraq war.

I do not want to minimize Dr. Farkas’ service.  The Politico.com article included the following praise from one of her colleagues.

She has advised three secretaries of defense on Russia policy, providing steady counsel on how the U.S. should respond to Russia’s aggressive actions and has been deeply involved in securing $244 million in support for Ukraine.

I chose this example because it forced me to rethink a false assumption.  When Dr. Farkas was introduced on Morning Joe, they gave her former title but did not tell us in which administration she served.  From her comments, I assumed she was a George W. Bush appointee.  I Googled her name to confirm that assumption.  I now know a one’s approach to national security does not necessarily correlate with political affiliation.  I now understand there are both hawks and doves advising President Obama.  And that is a good thing.  But it also reminds us when a president is faced with two opposing views, he or she really is the “decider.”  If everyone in the situation room holds the same perspective, there is no decision other than how quickly to say “yes.”

MSNBC did us a service by introducing us to Dr. Farkas.  Perhaps we would be further served if the cable networks gave us an opportunity to get to know those who will be advising the next commander-in-chief.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Disclaimer:  One modus operandi of the Donald Trump campaign has been the creation and distribution of conspiracy theories about his rivals.  Perhaps the most infamous  was linking Ted Cruz’s father to Lee Harvey Oswald.  Recently the campaign has pieced together unrelated information and video clips to suggest Hillary Clinton was physically ill and incapable of fulfilling the responsibilities of president, if elected.  The following is an example of how to build a conspiracy theory with no direct knowledge or solid evidence.  My goal is to show how easy it is.  Except for the final conclusion, all of the material in this fake tabloid story exists.

HEADLINE: DONALD TRUMP–SEX TRAFFICKER

Is Donald Trump part of a prostitution ring which traffics in underage girls? Here is what we know so far.

The August 30, 2016 edition of Mother Jones included an expose about Trump Model Management and how it allegedly violated immigration laws by encouraging young foreign woman to come to the United States on tourist visas (which prohibit working) until they proved their value as models.  The article, which also included first-hand accounts of how the agency overcharged models for rent and other miscellaneous fees, stated, “Trump Model Management recruited models as young as 14.” (Source:  Mother Jones, August 30, 2016)

This morning Rachel Blais (real name), one of the models who came forward, appeared on CNN and verified this information.  She also said that of the several young women with whom she shared a basement apartment, only two were retained by the agency and eventually applied for and received HB-1 visas to legally work in the U.S.  She also confirmed, while she was 18 years old at the time, some were as young as 14.

In what was thought to be an unrelated story, former Bear Stearns financier Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from girls as young as 14. (Source: New York Post, June 30, 2008)  In July, 2015, a federal judge ordered the documents associated with the plea deal be released.  The documents identify Jean Luc Brunel, co-founder of MC2 modeling agency as one of the individuals who supplied Epstein with underage females.

Brunel has been a model scout for various modeling agencies for many years and apparently was able to get U.S.passports for young girls to “work” as models. He would bring young girls (ranging to ages as young as twelve) to the United States for sexual purposes and farm them out to his friends,especially Epstein.

Brunel has denied the charges and has filed a defamation suit against Epstein. (Source, The Daily Beast, March 26, 2015)  Does this mean there really is no honor among thieves?

On April 26, 2016, Katie Johnson (real name) filed a civil suit against Trump and Epstein in federal court alleging she had been forcibly raped by Trump and Epstein in 1984 when she was 13 years old.  The filing includes the following:

 8. The Plaintiff, Katie Johnson, alleges she was enticed by promises of money and a modeling career to attend a series of underage sex parties held at the New York City residence of Defendant Jeffrey E. Epstein and attended by Defendant Donald J. Trump.

We have no evidence that Brunel also scouted young women for Trump Model Management or TMM supplied underage girls for Epstein’s prostitution ring.  But as Trump himself would remind us, “You know, a lot of people are saying that, and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there. We’re going to look at that and plenty of other things.” (Source: Donald Trump, New Hampshire, September 2015)

UPDATE: February 19, 2022

The original post was intended as satire.  However, now I am not so sure.  This morning Jean-Luc Brunel was found hanged in his French prison cell.  Brunel had been detained at Charles de Gaulle Airport in 2020 at the request of U.S. authorities due to his association with Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself in a NYC jail in 2019 while awaiting trial.

To paraphrase Arlo Guthrie, “If one person, just one person, kills himself after being charged with sex trafficking, they may think he’s really sick and they’ll let it pass.  And if two people, two people do it, they may think it’s a conspiracy and pay a little more attention.  And three people do it, three, can you imagine three people killing themselves after being associated with sex trafficking, they may think it’s a movement.  And that’s what it is, the Epstein/Brunel Sex Trafficking Movement and all you have to do to join is take yourself out of the gene pool the next time it comes around on the guitar.”

If the former guy, in retrospect, thought his go-to phrase “a lot of people are saying” was creepy, what previously recorded words of wisdom will come back to haunt him now.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP