Bill Clinton was not impeached for a blow job. Bill Clinton was impeached for committing perjury in a sexual harassment lawsuit brought against him by a former employee, and trying to convince other witnesses to commit perjury as well, obstructing justice. In addition to the House of Representatives impeaching him, he was found in contempt of court by the judge presiding over the lawsuit and had his license to practice law suspended for violating ethics rules.

That's all well and good, but the scandal part of it that captured the public's interest was certainly because of the blowjob/where'd the cigar go aspect of it. And I wasn't even referencing Clinton in particular--I'd put things like Anthony Weiner's sexts and Larry Craig's foot tapping in the same category. In the sense, they're on the trivial side of things and mostly get the public attention because of prurience, not salience for good governance.

The public was so interested in the "blowjob/cigar" aspect of the story that the Republican party suffered a historic defeat in the midterms that were seen as a rebuke to the GOP's attempt to make hay out of the story, and ended Newt Gingrich's career.

> ended Newt Gingrich's career

Apparently not.

He resigned in disgrace.

Hate to break it to you, but Gingrich is near the top of Trump's short list for Secretary of State:

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-election-day/gingrich-...

According to click bait media outlets with nothing to base it on.

That ended his job, not his career. He's been relatively politically active since then, being one of the top contenders for the presidential nomination from the exact same party despite other scandals of a sexual and moral nature. Definitely not a career-ender, apparently.

At no point has Gingrich ever been a contender in any Presidential race. Getting on TV doesn't make you a contender. Even Herman Cain managed to do that.

Okay, then, the almost $500k/yr he was making a year in speeches and his active involvement and relative success in politically oriented consultancies. Take your pick. He's still being pretty damn successful in political spaces.

edit: ha - misspoke, it was actually almost $5M / year

There is a non-zero chance Gingrich gets a substantial appointment.

There is a non-zero chance you get a substantial appointment.

The Larry Craig story had legs because he's a member of an anti-gay political party.

My point is that, his hypocrisy notwithstanding, it has maybe one millionth the importance of the fact that a foreign strategic competitor has significantly influenced American democratic processes in order to extract more favorable policies from the USA.

> The Larry Craig story had legs

...or at least feet.

Republicans use state powers, law enforcement and the judiciary, to criminalize and oppress their opposition and to promote their own interests. I don't see Democrats doing the equivalent of any of the following. I'm not saying that to be partisan, but to point out a very serious situation that has become normalized - I would say the same if the Democrats were doing it. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say it is semi-authoritarian.

* Bill Clinton was impeached. As you point out, he did commit perjury. However, the legal standard for impeachment is high crimes and misdemeanors; it was one of only two impeachments in 240 years (EDIT: Plus a third, Nixon, who IIRC would have been impeached if he hadn't resigned). Those are very high standards; obviously if Bill Clinton's wrongdoing was the standard far more would have been impeached. In fact, perjury is very rarely prosecuted for anyone. For example, GW Bush ran an illegal surveillance program - a far more serious crime - and there were no consequences.

* The 2000 Presidential election was decided by Republicans on the Supreme Court. Arguably it may also be a legally legitimate decision, but it was apparently a political one, as the vote was party-line.

* Democratic voters are accused of criminal fraud, with no evidence, and the GOP uses the government to suppress their voting.

* Organizations that register Democrats to vote are criminalized and shut down. Acorn is one prominent example of many.

* Organizations that promote Democrat-favored causes are criminalized. Planned Parenthood is one.

* The GOP used state powers to investigate Hillary Clinton endlessly, on Benghazi and her email server (note that nothing was found for either). Trump is still leaving open the possibility of continuing to investigate her. It cost her the election. Compare that to Trump, for whom there are no known investigations despite brazen sexual harassment, sexual harassment of minors, tax fraud, and much more.

* The FBI openly took actions, contrary to its rules and traditions, that undermined Clinton and probably cost her the election.

The list goes on and I think the pattern is clear.

> it was one of only two impeachments in 240 years

Technically true, but there was that other time when the President resigned rather than face impeachment, which should be counted. If anything, both times that the President was impeached shouldn't count since both were politically motivated. In our country's history, only Nixon--the one you didn't mention--committed crimes that warranted impeachment.

> there was that other time when the President resigned rather than face impeachment, which should be counted

Agreed. I'll update my post to reflect it. Thanks.

> both times that the President was impeached shouldn't count since both were politically motivated

True in a way, but I don't think it changes the evidence (it's very rare).

> In our country's history, only Nixon--the one you didn't mention--committed crimes that warranted impeachment.

Let's say he's the only one who was caught and investigated.

For what it's worth, both parties and various non-party-affiliated interest groups use the government to suppress opposing votes. See http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-democrats-suppress-t... (from a year ago, note).

I don't say this to excuse this sort behavior on the part of Republicans; it's utterly despicable in both cases.

> it's utterly despicable in both cases.

I absolutely agree. It should be anathema; people of all parties should unite to vote out anyone who tries.

However, the article talks about Democrats scheduling local elections (e.g., school board) at times when fewer people vote (e.g., odd years). If true (FiveThirtyEight is credible and the article seems well-reseached), I oppose the practice but I don't think it is at all equivalent to widespread programs intended to actually stop people from registering or voting.

Is there evidence of Democrats doing something more substantial?

The article talks about Democrats deliberately scheduling local elections at times when it's harder for people to make it to the polls: a weekday that's a separate day from a national election when people might be taking time off work to vote anyway. I would call that fairly substantial; that sort of "make it hard for people to get to the polls" thing is _exactly_ what lots of people rightly complain about Republicans doing. And it is in fact quite widespread; as the article notes it's going on in 44 out of our 50 states.

Update: For the rest, if you're looking for exact counterparts to your list of talking points, I don't have the time to look up references right now.

If you just want a general example of malfeasance, look no further than the systematic way the Democrat-dominated Illinois legislature discriminates against third-party candidates by requiring different numbers of petition signatures for different parties to get on the ballot at all. I have no doubt whatsoever that they'd do this for the Republican party too if there were just slightly fewer Republican voters in the state.

This sort of thing varies by location, of course; my experience in Massachusetts has been that there is a lot less of that sort of thing going on than in Illinois. We do have the election-scheduling thing in Massachusetts, though...

I agree the Democrats do things I don't like, and they should be addressed. Again, I don't think it's at all comparable to what I posted above and I think false equivalencies, often in the name of non-partisan 'fairness' (I don't know if that applies to you), are dangerous.

Didn't the Democrats use the IRS to target Republican politicians?

A good point and I'd forgotten about that allegation; thanks. My thoughts:

My memory is that the IRS was legitimately investigating illegal campaign finance, which happened to be among some Republican groups. GOP members of Congress used their power to shut down a legitimate law-enforcement investigation. (Note that the GOP has a history of this: They also have effectively disabled the Federal Election Commission by appointing members who veto almost every enforcement action against Republicans.) If my memory is accurate, it's further abuse of state power for the party's interests.

As a result, the U.S. has no campaign finance enforcement AFAIK. The IRS won't get near it, fearing Congressional Republicans, and the FEC has been hobbled.

Finally, even if my memory is false, it doesn't match up to the GOP pattern of behavior.

... but later the whole line of inquiry and interview of him was ruled in court to be immaterial to the case. So there's some disagreement with the perspective you're outlining.

What did the NSA keep burried? The article mentions that the NSA immediately pointed out Russia for the Wikileaks hacks, already on October 15th: http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-blames-russia-for-recent-hac...

I don't really read anything new in the article except what was already mentioned in October.

The NSA's statement had a lot of weasel-words in it, and Julian Assange explicitly denied that the emails came from a Russian source.

Do most HN commenters believe that Assange is outright lying?

Wikileaks staff have generally responded-

"We receive information anonymously, through an anonymous submission platform. We do not need to know the identity of the source, neither do we want to know it.", most recently in the AMA https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5c8u9l/we_are_the_wik...

If correct (and I'm inclined to believe them here as it's a key component of their process), then they would have no knowledge one way or another as to who the true submitter really was. I think Assange is bending the truth by denying the source of the submission—if his staff's statement is true then he would have no way of knowing.

Under Occam's Razor I'd conclude that they got played in the exact way that was intended.

It seems very likely to me that the NSA has means to determine the origin of the source that Assange does not have. He's as easy to fool as any other single person who sits in an embassy with a laptop.

So yeah, I would give more credibility to the NSA than to Assange in this case, without any need to accuse him of lying.

Not sure what the DNC did to gain HN commenters undying loyalty. :|

That is a great point. I'm updating my post to reflect this information.

No, it's not a "great point", it's just the facts.

This is not a scandal.

If true, but embarrassing leaked emails had been obtained by a non-state actor, news outlets would do what news outlets do, and they would publish it. There would by cries to investigate and prosecute from the embarrassed party but typically at the end of the day little would come of it.

The fact that it was a state actor is a red herring. Would it had made any difference if it were an unknown US hacker?

Further, Hillary Clinton truly has no one to blame but herself for her FBI problems. Four years of dissembling and foot dragging caused this. Additionally, what the Wikileaks hack shows is that her carelessness almost certainly meant that top secret emails were hacked by an adversarial state actor as well.

> Four years of dissembling and foot dragging caused this.

This is an interesting reminder what this whole scandal is actually about - Benghazi.

The whole dragnet search through emails was actually impelled by a frantic search for some way to claim that Clinton caused the death of American ambassadorial staff by malice, or at least gross negligence. This is a concept that has been thoroughly investigated and debunked at this point. In fact we've probably spent more Congressional time on this than Watergate at this point, and they haven't found a single misdeed. It's the biggest McGuffin since Citizen Kane.

But that's how you do it when you're determined to manufacture a scandal - if you can't find dirt then you can go digging and find some point of non-compliance with the investigation, just like how an investigation of Bill Clinton's blowjob was turned into an investigation of (gasp) perjury. With enough months in front of a Congressional panel, everyone will slip up sooner or later. After all, as the lawyers say - "everyone commits three felonies a day", and it's probably more than that for a government official given all the regulations they need to comply with. They will eventually find something.

By the way, back in the day Watergate was actually a big scandal and news outlets certainly would not have knowingly published private communications that were illegally wiretapped. I think that really goes to show how far American values have fallen since the 70s. Our media has abandoned their journalistic values, and is little more than an outlet for tabloid gossip and clickbait.

Not only do they not show that, but emails using the official State Department mail servers were in fact hacked by Russia during the same time period. Her mails were very possibly safer on her own server.

Further, Wikileaks didn't leak her State Department emails. The State Department emails we saw were published by the US Government. Wikileaks published hacked emails from the DNC and from John Podesta.

> The fact that it was a state actor is a red herring. Would it had made any difference if it were an unknown US hacker?

I think it makes a huge difference. The specific parties involved and their intent matters.

Suppose this were a shooting instead of hack. If an unknown US citizen shoots up a mall, it's a headline. If a member of a Foreign military shoots up a US mall, it's an international incident.

Inaccurate analogy. There are several analogies one can come up with to emphasize the "who" over the "what" and there are several analogies that can do the opposite. In this case, even if the "who" matters in some other context, it shouldn't matter with regards to the "what" which is the same regardless. So while the who does matter, that's a different question and a different discussion and arguably shifts the discussion away from the what.

The analogy is the least important part of my statement.

I'm not entirely clear on what you're saying. Just to be clarify, suppose that the hack was done either by a script kiddy, or a nation state. Are you saying it doesn't make a difference?

To the original question of "Would it had made any difference if it were an unknown US hacker?", I believe it would not have made any difference in the election which is what I believe is implied by the question. As to whether it makes a difference at all, sure it does in other contexts (e.g. foreign diplomacy), but the email writers and the contents are what helped make the difference in the election. Blaming the releasers is like blaming SMTP or computers, it shifts responsibility.

> Would it had made any difference if it were an unknown US hacker?

Yes, especially if it was done or aided by a domestic three letter agency.

Isn't it illegal for Federal employees to attempt in any way to influence an election? Couldn't such a thing be considered "attempting to influence" and expose them to losing their jobs or worse?

That and much of what the NSA and CIA does is classified, so they may not be able to release much of what they know without first declassifying it. From what I hear it's easy to stamp secret or top secret on something but bureaucratic hell to undo classification, giving classification kind of a roach motel effect.

> Isn't it illegal for Federal employees to attempt in any way to influence an election?

It is, but law enforcement and Congress only investigate Democrats at high levels, not Republicans. Trump did many things that may be illegal, but there were no FBI investigations. See this post for more:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12969225

> Couldn't such a thing be considered "attempting to influence" and expose them to losing their jobs or worse?

The maximum penalty under the Hatch Act is removal from office, so no "or worse" here.

In hindsight that's rather a major fault with the Hatch Act, since it means there's little downside to influencing the election for someone who doesn't care about losing their job, or who expects to lose it anyway if the opposition party wins.

> Isn't it illegal for Federal employees to attempt in any way to influence an election?

If it is, how does any incumbent (and their cabinet or staff) ever campaign for election to another term?

The Hatch act forbids federal employees from influencing an election. With the exception of elected officials obviously.

When would it have been alright for the FBI to release the update? If they waited until after the election, the other side would accuse them of covering it up—appropriately so.

My direct response to your question is: the same as when the NSA released theirs. Like I said in the very post you're responding to, there are arguments both ways, but to pick and choose which argument you're using in a way that always happens to disadvantage one candidate is a scandal itself, and likely a criminal violation of the Hatch act.

And as an aside, it was an update to the effect of "we don't actually know anything new, but we found something that might hold something new." And, as we know now, didn't actually contain anything new. There's a reason they call it the October surprise.

NSA released their info on Oct 7, a month before the election.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-blames-russia-for-recent-hac...

When they found new evidence relevant to the Clinton case. As it stands, the situation was "we found some emails of the husband of the aide of a person we investigated". That's not directly relevant to the investigation in any way, and it's not evidence of wrongdoing. They drastically jumped the gun by publically linking it as they did.

At an absolute minimum they should have waited until they knew there was some data both relevant to the investigation and not previously known to the FBI. They should probably also have made sure the evidence implied wrongdoing, out of concern of influencing the election.

This is exactly what Comey was told by the Justice Department, his subordinates, and pretty much everyone else.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/us/politics/comey-clinton-...

> When would it have been alright for the FBI to release the update? If they waited until after the election, the other side would accuse them of covering it up—appropriately so.

The FBI's and Justice Department's long-standing rules on the issue are: 1) Never discuss ongoing investigations; and 2) take great care to never say anything that will at all affect an election.

So while your question is an interesting one, the FBI has two clear, long-standing answers and rules, and they violated them.

There was nothing there, so that seems unlikely.

You only know that in hindsight. The FBI didn't know if anything was there before they had a chance to investigate, and they also didn't know how soon the investigation could be completed. So, yes, they did risk a possible scenario of coverup accusations if they decided to not notify congress the moment they started investigating again.

The right certainly would've complained about a coverup if Comey hadn't said anything about the additional emails before the election. It was still a gross breach in protocol and wholly inappropriate.

As a rule the FBI simply does not announce they're investigating someone because it can damage the investigation, and because it could unfairly tarnish someone who has done nothing wrong.

The encroachment of political calculus into the Justice Department is not a good thing. Let Democrats or Republicans howl about whatever, the DoJ and other law enforcement and intelligence agencies need to do their job the right way, regardless of partisan complaining.

> risk a possible scenario of coverup accusations

That has no significance when weighed against the risk undermining democracy and effectively choosing the next President, which is what happened.

Luckily, we still have months of investigation on the Clinton Foundation to entertain us well into 2017.

> but one material to how the President will govern and look out for American interests--buried until after the election

Can you explain the story? I'm not familiar

Edit: er.. down vote? I don't live in the US..

There are various interpretations, but the most generous version of it has that Russia and Trump had a coincidence of interest in seeing Clinton defeated, and played off each other to maximize the chances of Trump's victory.

The least generous is the Trump is controlled by the Kremlin, and Putin has installed a toadie he has under his thumb to the US Presidency.

(Just for the sake of argument, assuming Russia is involved exactly as stated...)

I don't think Russia had any particular leverage over Trump.

Rather, Russia is desperate to avert war between 2 nuclear armed powers.

Most US citizens have no idea how tense relations have gotten between Russia and the US in the last year. Hillary's stated policy of implementing a no fly zone over Syria would have almost certainly led to armed conflict between the US and Russia.

As for Trump, it remains to be seen what happens, but he has said he wants to work with Russia to take down ISIS, which is a mutual problem both countries face, and to me that cooperation sounds better than WW3.

Also, there is evidence of Russian government collaboration with Trump's organization, and the Russian ambassador said his government had talks with Trump's people during the election.

The government needs to shrink so it can't be bought. It's ridiculous that the party which should be anti government hasn't reduced the federal agencies.

What? Seems like a smaller government would be that much cheaper to buy off.

I would argue the opposite. A smaller gov't implies a gov't with less power. Less power means less incentive for lobbyists to influence decisions.

No need to buy them off at that point because they won't be in the way. The only reason to lobby government officials is to dismantle laws that protect others at your company's expense or to put in place laws that protect your company at others' expense.

Oversight and accountability are easier in smaller organizations.

When the government has less power, it's less worthwhile to buy it off.

Because people seem to misunderstand this: a government that isn't all-powerful may be easier to buy off but not really. There would be no point in buying off a government that couldn't do any favors, so even if someone does buy it, it won't do them any good. Government growth has created the monster we have today. The US government used to only be worth a few terrifs and some influence on who it fought. Today, buying into government not only influences the wrong type of people to be politicians, it also gives huge amounts of power to the investors. To be a big business and succeed in today's world, you pretty much have to either have some people invested in your company in the government or you have to do some bribes. This isn't a view that the government should have no power, rather power that companies don't care about. The US monopoly policy, tax policies, hiring requirements, and other government-imposed burdens on companies are comparatively easier to buy around instead of following if the company is large enough. Why is wanting a small government bad?