The Crime and Corruption of Hillary Rodham Clinton

At some point in the future, Americans will review the 2016 election and scratch their heads in puzzlement. Removed from the extraordinary drama of this campaign season, they’ll be unable to grasp how a criminal like Hillary Clinton got so close to becoming president of the United States. Or, depending on what happens Tuesday, how she actually realized that goal.

What could the voters have been thinking? How could they have overlooked her long list of scandals, any one of which made her unfit to hold the highest office in the land?

Take the email scandal. Most of us probably agree with Bernie Sanders by now and are “sick and tired” of hearing about her “damn emails,” but it’s not the trivial concern that he and others have tried to make it out to be. By using a private server to share classified material, Hillary Clinton violated federal law and put our national security at risk. She lied about it to the FBI, she lied about it to the State Department, and she lied about it to the American people. You may or may not believe that she deserves prison time, but who could possibly believe she deserves to be president?

Take the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack that left four Americans dead. Congressional investigations have been unable to fully pin those deaths on Clinton, but her decisions as secretary of state left the embassy ill protected and her negligence left our men without military backup when they needed it most. In the days after the attack, she lied to the families of those lost in an attempt to distance herself from culpability. How low can a person sink?

Take the Clinton Foundation. The full story of her pay to play scandal has not yet been written, but we already know she used her power as secretary of state to enrich herself, trading favors for donations. That’s the kind of corruption her voters are supporting.

One of Clinton’s favorite lines is, “America is great because America is good.” But “goodness” isn’t about the kind of language a person uses when they’re yukking it up behind closed doors or whether or not they adhere to the rules of political correctness. It’s about fundamental traits like honesty and integrity. Traits that Hillary Clinton does not possess.

The result of this election will have long lasting consequences, politically, legally, and morally. Let’s hope they are consequences we can live with.