In our OpenCdA posts on November 18, 2014, and December 5, 2014, we expressed our unqualified support for the US Senate to quickly confirm President Obama’s nominee, Loretta Lynch, to be the new United States Attorney General. Our support was based on her responses to the Senate Judiciary Committee and Lynch’s performance as a straight-up US Attorney in the Eastern District of New York.
But then yesterday in a television news report from ABC15 News Arizona in Phoenix, we first learned that Attorney General Lynch and former President Bill Clinton met privately for 15 to 30 minutes on her airplane at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. A few more details about the meeting were in today’s online Washington Post story headlined Attorney general meets with former president Clinton amid politically charged investigation into his wife’s email.
Both Lynch and Clinton denied that anything in their conversation was inappropriate.
Maybe, but we know that Lynch is obviously an experienced federal prosecuting attorney, and Clinton was at one time a practicing attorney. Without any doubt, both Lynch and Clinton knew any private meeting between them would create an appearance of impropriety and be a very serious breach of legal ethics and professional conduct. Conceivably, in Clinton’s case, his conduct could rise to the level of obstruction of justice.
OpenCdA would like to believe that AG Loretta Lynch was blindsided, that neither she nor her staff had agreed in advance to meet with Clinton. Former president Clinton is a proven liar, so we do not believe his version of this story, that he just happened to be at Sky Harbor at the same time Lynch was and that he spontaneously decided to meet with her.
Unless there had been prior coordination of such a meeting, Lynch’s security detail should have stopped Clinton at the bottom of the stairs to her aircraft. Clinton should never have been allowed to board her aircraft. Lynch should have instructed her staff to politely but firmly decline to allow Clinton on board to meet with her and remind him of how such a meeting would appear. It was the AG staff’s job to politely but firmly deliver that message to Clinton. Once the AG’s staff had informed Clinton that the AG would not meet personally with him, it became the duty of the FBI SAs on her security detail to prevent his unauthorized boarding of her aircraft, physically if necessary.
AG Loretta Lynch had the duty, the authority, and the “muscle” to prevent former president Clinton from being in a position to compromise her objectivity and integrity in making a charging decision about Hillary Clinton. She failed.
Lynch’s failure of duty taints any decision she might be asked to make about Hillary Clinton’s alleged criminal conduct.
OpenCdA believed that after the fetid stench of Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch would be an ethical and professional breath of fresh air at the top of the US Department of Justice.
Boy, were we wrong!
Thursday night a CNN story headlined Bill Clinton meeting causes headaches for Hillary stated:
It seems to me there are two possibilities: (1) Someone with the authority to direct her security detail (FBI SAs) told the detail to let Clinton board the aircraft, or (2) the SAs on Lynch’s security detail have a lot of explaining to do.
Comment by Bill — July 1, 2016 @ 9:57 am
I hear that their security was very good … , some reporter has spilled the beans, “Sign told Fox News Host Bill O’Reilly on Thursday: “She arrives, some people step off of her plane, the former president steps into her plane. They then speak for 30 minutes privately, the FBI there on the tarmac instructing everybody around: ‘No photos. No pictures. No cellphones.’”
Comment by Stebbijo — July 1, 2016 @ 11:55 am
Stebbijo,
Is “Sign” the reporter or someone else?
The information in your comment suggests rather than Lynch being “… surprised to see Clinton walking onto her plane…” as CNN reported, Lynch was at least told Clinton was waiting/hoping to see her. If she agreed to see him, it means she had an opportunity to politely and firmly refuse to see him.
Comment by Bill — July 1, 2016 @ 2:18 pm
CHristoper Sign … here is another article: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/reporter-fbi-ordered-no-photos-no-pictures-of-lynchclinton-meeting/
Comment by Stebbijo — July 1, 2016 @ 3:51 pm
here is the You Tube recording … based on this, I would say AG Lynch is a cold blooded liar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY-cQqxnySI
Comment by Stebbijo — July 1, 2016 @ 4:05 pm
Stebbijo,
Thanks for the two links.
I had heard earlier that former President Clinton was in Phoenix at a Hispanic fundraiser for Mrs. Clinton. However, I think you can be sure that if that were true and given the Clinton’s penchant for publicity, there would have been a large amount of news coverage. That Clinton was running late was no surprise; as President he was chronically disrespectful of other people’s time. However, it was troubling that Clinton may have intentionally delayed his own departure so he could be in the immediate area when Lynch’s plane arrived.
And I am still really troubled that Clinton was supposedly able to walk onto Lynch’s aircraft without either her FBI security detail or her staff being aware of it. To me, that is the most definitive evidence of a prior meeting arrangement.
If I were a member of the skews media who was genuinely interested in pursuing what happened (stop laughing!), at FBI Director James Comey’s next press conference, I would hammer him about that apparent serious lapse of security. Of Director Comey I would ask the same question I would like to ask Secret Service Director Joe Clancy: Describe the coordination between former president Clinton’s USSS protective detail and AG Lynch’s FBI protective detail to ensure that all the guys and gals with guns and handcuffs knew that former president Clinton was going to be meeting with AG Lynch on board her aircraft. If the protective details knew, then it seems unlikely that the Clinton and Lynch staffs didn’t know. If the Lynch staff knew, then it there is almost zero chance that Lynch didn’t know.
At the AG’s next press conference, I would want to know if any of the “career prosecutors” on the DoJ staff who have donated the maximum amount to Hillary Clinton’s campaign (e.g., Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and Assistant Attorney General and Chief of the Criminal Division Leslie R. Caldwell) were involved in the decision-making on the charging of federal crimes in either the email server or the Clinton Foundation investigations.
Comment by Bill — July 1, 2016 @ 8:13 pm
Former Clinton President probably met with AG Lynch for the pay off. 🙂
They FBI did know about the meeting. According to the reporter who broke the story, his “trusted source” and another source already confirmed the meeting was going to happen. This was not an accident or chance encounter where they were going to talk about their grandchildren and golf. They got caught. The reporter had first hand knowledge that essentially destroyed their security. It was supposed be TOP SECRET — lol.
However, I understand your point that if the meeting was not planned, why didn’t security do something other than tell everyone, “‘No photos. No pictures. No cellphones.”
Nothing surprises me anymore, and with the DOJ contributing to campaigns it makes it even worse. I would suspect that the career prosecutors in this debacle at a press conference would say, they only talk about their grandchildren and golf.
Comment by Stebbijo — July 2, 2016 @ 9:55 am
Stebbijo,
If in fact the meeting had been pre-arranged between the Clinton and Lynch staffs, the FBI security detail on Lynch should have been told about it. So should the USSS detail on Clinton. Unfortunately, on rare occasions staff members and protected persons have been known to withhold information from the protective details, so the protection SAs get caught by surprise.
However, in this case it does sound very plausible that the FBI SAs on Lynch had been told, even if only moments before Clinton strolled up, and had been instructed to let Clinton board the aircraft. If that is true, then all of Lynch’s subsequent responses must be presumed to have been intentionally deceptive.
Part of the deception would have included the fallback story that if the meeting was discovered (as it was), the parties would say it had been spontaneously prompted by Clinton. Obviously both parties would have to agree on the cover story that they discussed golf, grandkids, etc. When challenged by the skews media, Lynch would admit her error in judgement but claim that charging decisions would be made by other trusted “career prosecutors” and the FBI. (Never mind that while the FBI might vehemently defend its recommendation, the decision rests with the AG’s office.)
I’ll speculate that one possible reason Lynch might agree to meet with former president Clinton would be so Lynch could inform Clinton that DoJ likely would or would not seek to criminally indict Hillary, Bill, Chelsea, or the Foundation. That is the kind of information the Clinton Campaign and the Democrat Party would need to know as quickly as possible in preparation for the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia beginning July 25th.
I really don’t want to believe that’s what happened, but if Lynch was lying to the public about the meeting with Clinton, it is certainly a possibility.
CNN is reporting that Hillary Clinton was interviewed for 3-1/2 hours today by the FBI. It seems logical that the Clintons would have known about the time and place of that interview before the Sky Harbor meeting, so that may add another question mark or two about the purpose of the supposedly impromptu meeting and which party requested it.
Comment by Bill — July 2, 2016 @ 12:03 pm