Wednesday, March 16, 2016

We Hear Rumours

There's talk among some US State Department and diplomatic officials that a seismic event may be coming the Democrats' way next month. The rumours involve the indictment of Hillary Clinton for leaking classified information through her emails during her tenure as Secretary of State.

In the US those matters are taken very seriously. Those convicted usually get a stay in the Greybar Hotel. The exception was disgraced former general David Petraeus but, then again, his fall from grace (and prestige) was punishment aplenty.

Why April? Because the investigatory agencies, the State Department and the FBI, don't want to sabotage the DNC in this election year by leaving it any later.

Support for Hillary is already wobbly and waning and, with an indictment hanging over her head, many feel her campaign would be utterly derailed. If you're a Bernie supporter, don't count your chickens just yet. First, this is still only a rumour. Second, if Hillary is forced out that doesn't mean the DNC would back Sanders. There is an option and its name is Joe Biden.

I heard all about this through Ottawa backchannels recently. What I heard eerily mirrors a report from the Washington Examiner a couple of weeks ago.

The story I'm getting is that the Obama administration has been busy getting Biden back into circulation recently with a range of profile lifting activities from a tour of the Middle East to representing the White House at Nancy Reagan's funeral and a host of appearances in between.

Stay tuned.

9 comments:

Steve said...

The only thing that can save America is this indidment. I believe Sanders like Trudeau could win a sunny ways campaign. Trump would club Hillary like a baby seal.

Dana said...

The only sources I can find online are all right wing blathering holes like the aforementioned Washington Examiner. Are you sure your Ottawa friends aren't yanking your chain?

Anonymous said...

Interesting to say the least.I believe Obama does not want Hillary or Bill Clinton and their massive line of baggage anywhere near the Whitehouse.
Here's another possibility.Hilary gets charged for the email thing but Obama makes a deal.
That deal being,if Hilary drops out he ensures she won't go to prison.Then again there are rumours the Clinton Foundation may be under investigation as well.Another possible ace Obama may use.
In walks Biden and running mate Elizabeth Warren.
Trump in the meantime gets done in on some dirty backroom deal and voila.
I will stay tuned.

The Mound of Sound said...

@ Dana - no, how can anyone ever be sure when the starting point is embassy scuttlebutt? That said, I got it from a guy who has never lied to me and we go back a little over 30-years.

Dana said...

Hhhhmmm...would certainly spice up a boring primary season eh?

The Mound of Sound said...

@ Anon. There are important reasons why the FBI and State Department types have to move soon on this. Hillary is poised to win the Dem nomination. The optics of addressing it after that are horrific and this is perhaps the most volatile election year in American history.

Hillary is a problem. She's not well liked. Her approval numbers are in the ditch. Many Dems think Trump can smear her to defeat in November. The last thing she could survive is a cloud like this over her head. It would literally hand Trump the White House.

The Mound of Sound said...


@ Steve. I don't see Sanders with as much confidence as you have in the guy. I would like to - very much - but I can't get there.

Dana said...

The USA is ungovernable anyway. I'm not sure it matters much.

BJ Bjornson said...

I don’t see it. There have been claims about a pending indictment over these emails for months and months, and before that it was Benghazi, and before that something else all the way back to Whitewater. It has a very Lucy holding the football feeling at this point.

More importantly, it would mean that practically the entire Democratic establishment, including the guy the FBI Director and State Department reports to, and even Hillary’s competitors for the nomination, have effectively done next to nothing for months while this imminent threat was hanging over the future of their party. Not only that, but nearly unanimously enthusiastically thrown their support behind this person for their party’s nomination going into the fall elections that most of them will also be facing the voters in. Further, no one will bother to do anything major to prepare or deal with this potentially earth-shaking controversy until the news actually breaks, at which point they will start scrambling around like chickens who have lost their heads in the hopes of salvaging a compromise candidate to be their standard bearer in the national election a few months down the road.

I know one can never fully underestimate the intelligence of one’s elected leadership, but just given the sheer instinct for self-preservation for their positions, not to mention that Obama’s administration has never struck me as being particularly incompetent, I just don’t see the entire Democratic establishment having accidentally overlooked and being blindsided by something that would be both as easy to foresee and that’s of such great importance as such an indictment would be.