Trump Will Let Crooked Hillary Off the Hook

On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” co-host Mika Brzezinski reported that sources “with direct knowledge of Donald Trump’s thinking” told her that the president-elect does not intend to pursue any further investigations into Hillary Clinton’s misuse of classified information. According to Brzezinski’s source, Trump felt that Hillary had already been “through enough.”

This more or less matches what Trump said in his 60 Minutes interview, where he told Lesley Stahl that the Clintons were “good people” that “he didn’t want to hurt.”

On Tuesday, Trump’s top advisor, Kellyanne Conway, told “Morning Joe” that Trump was indeed ready to move on.

“When the president tells you he doesn’t wish to pursue the charges, it sends a strong message,” Conway said. “I think Hillary Clinton still has to face the fact that a majority of Americans don’t find her to be honest or trustworthy, but if Trump can help her heal, perhaps that’s a good thing.”

This is a whiplash-inducing turnaround for Trump, who built his campaign on the premise that Clinton should be in prison for mishandling classified material. Clinton’s misdeeds inspired one of the most unforgettable chants of the 2016 election season: “Lock her up!” Even conservatives who couldn’t bring themselves to support Trump were enraged at the preferential treatment the Obama administration was giving to Hillary.

Was some of this outrage politically-motivated? Of course. We all knew that. If Hillary hadn’t been running for president, no one would have been clamoring for her imprisonment. Not in any kind of sustained, non-stop way. And at this point, most of her critics are content with knowing she will never be president.

Still, though.

Whether or not Trump should appoint a special prosecutor to re-investigate Hillary’s private server escapades, we do deserve to know exactly what happened over the course of the first investigation. Something was screwy. Someone was putting their thumb on the scale. Clinton’s biggest fans and her harshest critics can both agree that this investigation was not normal. Our questions now go well beyond Hillary’s activities; the credibility of the FBI and the DOJ is badly damaged.

Trump is wise to focus his energy on things that will improve the lives of the American people, but the foul stench of corruption is hanging over our top law enforcement agencies.

We can’t afford to ignore it.