Clinton Email Controversy Now Fruit of a Poisonous Tree after Republicans Seen Rigging Hearings

by johndavis, October 13, 2015

Clinton Email Controversy Now Fruit of a Poisonous Tree after Republicans Seen Rigging Hearings October 13, 2015 Vol. VIII, No. 15 2:13 pm Fruit of a Poisonous Tree Tonight, during the first Democratic presidential debate beginning at 8:30 EST on CNN, what would have been a politically explosive issue regarding the use of a
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Clinton Email Controversy Now Fruit of a Poisonous Tree after Republicans Seen Rigging Hearings

October 13, 2015 Vol. VIII, No. 15 2:13 pm

Fruit of a Poisonous Tree

Tonight, during the first Democratic presidential debate beginning at 8:30 EST on CNN, what would have been a politically explosive issue regarding the use of a private email server by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be defused by the perception that U.S. House Republicans rigged the Benghazi hearings to weaken Clinton’s campaign for president.

In politics, perceptions are the only reality.

Tonight, during the debate sponsored by CNN and Facebook, Clinton will win the argument on the email controversy, saying she has taken responsibility for her decision to use a personal account, that the use of a private email account was allowed under State Department rules, that nothing she sent or received was marked classified, and that she provided all of her work-related emails to the State Department.

She will win because the Republican-led Special Committee on Benghazi obtained the email controversy under false pretense. The fruit of a poisonous tree.

The committee was supposed to be investigating the terrorist attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya in 2012 during which our ambassador and three other Americans were killed. And, up until Tuesday, September 29, 2015, only Democrats suggested that the Benghazi committee was a partisan political assault force.

However, on that September day, Republican House Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy, in line to succeed John Boehner as Speaker of the House, told Fox News host Sean Hannity, “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.”

The integrity of the Benghazi committee was shattered by McCarthy’s foolish statement implying partisan political intent behind the panel’s investigations. He poisoned the tree, and along with it he tainted the fruit of the tree, Hillary Clinton’s private email server controversy.

In 1961, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Mapp v. State of Ohio that incriminating evidence obtained by way of an illegal search could not be used in state courts. That’s analogous to what’s happened here … in the court of public opinion.

In the court of public opinion, evidence of Hillary Clinton’s potentially incriminating use of a private email server as U.S. Secretary of State cannot be used against her politically because it was obtained under false pretense by a committee perceived to have an ulterior partisan motive.

In politics, perceptions are the only reality.

Republican Staff Whistle Blower Fuels Perception of Political Aim

As if having the Majority Leader of your caucus discredit your committee’s work is not enough, now comes a story in the October 11, 2015, The New York Times, in which a former Republican staff investigator for the Benghazi committee, Maj. Bradley Podliska, alleges that the committee was engaged in “a partisan investigation” targeting Hillary Clinton.

Maj. Bradley Podliska, who also says that half of the committee staff was “surfing the Web all day long,” was fired by the committee in June of this year. A disgruntled employee? Obviously.

However, we are dealing in perceptions here. Podliska’s accusations undeniably add fuel to the flaming perception that the Benghazi Committee was targeting Clinton for political ends.

Clinton is scheduled to testify before the House Select Committee on Benghazi next Thursday, October 22. Thanks to a well-founded perception that the committee is on a witch-hunt, it’s the committee, not Hillary Clinton, who will be on the hottest of the seats.

Republican Overreach Key to Clinton’s Aspirations

On August 11, 2015, I wrote the following in the John Davis Political Report:

“She [Hillary Clinton] will survive all scandalous allegations for the same reason her husband survived impeachment relating to the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal: Republican overreach.”

On December 20, 1998, the day after the Articles of Impeachment were passed by a Republican-led U.S. House, Democratic President Bill Clinton’s approval rating jumped 10 points to 73%, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll. Thanks to Republican overreach, Clinton’s approval rating soared to an all-time high while the favorable view of the GOP fell ten points.

That’s what is about to happen in 2016. Republican candidates for president piling on Hillary Clinton with vindictive hyperbole; fourteen Republican candidates, 13 of whom are men.

Tonight, during the first Democratic presidential debate beginning at 8:30 EST on CNN, Hillary Clinton will win the argument on the email server controversy because the Republican-led Benghazi committee is perceived to have rigged congressional hearings for political gain.