Monday Reads: The Swiftboating of Hillary and the Clinton Foundation

Happy Labor Day!

We’ve been discussing the absolutely uneven and biased media coverage of the 2016 presidential race for some time here at Sky Dancing.  Corporate media’s fascination with Donald Trump is completely swamping any motivation to actually ensure the truth of statements made by his campaigns and campaign surrogates.

There’s an obsessive false equivalency giving Clinton positions and arguments some kind of equal footing with outrageous, unsupported accusations and name calling coming from Trump and his seriously unhinged surrogates. A laundry list of appeals to the Alt-Right and dog whistles to White Nationalists does not equate to calling some one a bigot with no proof above and beyond the name calling.  Just  sayin’.

So why do they get away with it?  Hasn’t anyone in the media determined that right wing conspiracies and bigoted statements by fringe groups are disinformation and propaganda?

A few group associated with media accountability and culpability plus a few–primarily woman and minority–journalists are beginning to document the absolute unequal treatment of coverage of the Trump  Foundation and actual circumstances of illegal donations with that of the Clinton Foundation.The Clinton foundation has long been considered one of the ethical charities in existence.  I want to provide some information on the swiftboating of the Clinton Foundation vs. the hands-off treatment given the already fined and found guilty Trump Foundation.  As we’ve discussed here, both the AP and the NYT have hit absolute lows in  reporting tying to infer that Clinton’s time at the State Department included a pay for play scheme with her husband’s foundation.

Hillary Clinton has faced consistent scrutiny for her role in the Clinton Foundation, which was established after Bill Clinton left office. The foundation focuses on global health, climate change, improving opportunities for girls and women and a variety of other activities.

Much of the controversy about the Clinton Foundation focuses on Hillary Clinton’s role as Secretary of State and whether she was complicit in “selling access” in return for donations to the foundation. These charges were elevated to prominence by Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute, in his book Clinton Cash.

The Government Accountability Institute is the non-profit arm of Breitbart.com, a notoriously pugilistic right-wing website. Trump recentlyhired Steve Bannon, who runs Breitbart, to be the CEO of his campaign. Schweizer’s book failed to uncover any clear evidence of wrongdoing — and was rife with errors — but it did succeed in focusing mainstream media attention on the alleged issue.

Details from both the NYT and AP stories proved to be an assortment of cherry-picked schedules, innuendo, and clickbait headlines.  Meawhile, an actual example of illegal donations–which has all the look of a pay for play on the part of the Trump Foundation–has going nearly ignored. I’ve borrowed a few paragraphs’ here from Judd Legume’s excellently researched at Think Progress. Please go read the entire piece which includes the wonky graph up top.

Meanwhile, on September 1, news broke that the Trump Foundation “violated tax laws by giving a political contribution to a campaign group connected to Florida’s attorney general.” It was required to pay a $2500 fine to the IRS.

The details of the case are even more unseemly. Florida’s Attorney General was considering opening an investigation into Trump University, which is accused of defrauding students. Bondi herself contacted Trump and asked for a political contribution. After a political committee associated with her campaign received the illegal $25,000 contribution, she decided not to pursue it.

The story has something that none of the Clinton Foundation stories have: Actual evidence of illegal conduct. In this case, not only is there concrete evidence that the Trump Foundation broke the law, but a formal finding of wrongdoing by the IRS.

This weekend, many others have taken up the banner to decry the unequal coverage.  Professor Rick Hasen–a political science and law professor at UCI--is among them

Hassan points out the silence of the lambs at the NYT on the Bondi bribe.  Check out the Storify listed by Greg Dworkin (below) for his complete analysis. He also has a blog which we’ll quote from shortly.

Paul Krugman has gone on the attack too. Here’s some analysis via AltNet.

Krugman has a sick feeling of deja vu in the coverage of Clinton and Trump. True, some of Trump’s dishonesty has been reported. But he is definitely being normalized and graded on a crazy curve. The minute he does not say anything deeply offensive for a whole day, he is hailed as pivoting and being presidential. Maybe he won’t immediately round up 11 million undocumented immigrants. Good for him! Meanwhile, his latest apparent criminality, payoffs to state attorneys general to stop investigating his fraudulent University, is getting almost no attention.

Compare this to the Clinton Foundation, the coverage of which Krugman calls “bizarre.”

When Bill Clinton left office, he was a popular, globally respected figure. What should he have done with that reputation? Raising large sums for a charity that saves the lives of poor children sounds like a pretty reasonable, virtuous course of action. And the Clinton Foundation is, by all accounts, a big force for good in the world. For example, Charity Watch, an independent watchdog, gives it an “A” rating — better thanthe American Red Cross.

Now, any operation that raises and spends billions of dollars creates the potential for conflicts of interest. You could imagine the Clintons using the foundation as a slush fund to reward their friends, or, alternatively, Mrs. Clinton using her positions in public office to reward donors. So it was right and appropriate to investigate the foundation’s operations to see if there were any improper quid pro quos. As reporters like to say, the sheer size of the foundation “raises questions.”

But nobody seems willing to accept the answers to those questions, which are, very clearly, “no.”

The now infamous Associated Press report, filled with innuendo, managed to dig up the fact that Clinton met with a Nobel Peace Prize winner and personal friend Muhammad Yunus. Oooooo, that’s bad.

Krugman cautions readers of such reports to be aware of “weasel” words, like “raises questions,”  or creates “shadows.”

Only one candidate in the raise bilked students, stiffed workers, and from all appearances, failed to pay his share of taxes.  Which is to say nothing of being totally incoherent about policy and engaging in dangerous, violence-inciting fearmongering.

My  friend David Bernstein dropped these links to my facebook comment about the Bondi and Abbot donations. There is a clear implication of pay to play here as well as where the real  IRS fine occurred in the Bondi case.

From the Miami Herald:  Donald Trump Buys himself an attorney General for $25000 from June 8, 2016.

From the Federalist:  Did Trump Buy Off Cuomo To Protect His Bogus University? from April 18, 2016

From CBS NEWS:  Former Texas official says he was told to drop Trump University probe from June 5, 2016

Owens said he was so surprised at the order to stand down he made a copy of the case file and took it home.

“It had to be political in my mind because Donald Trump was treated differently than any other similarly situated scam artist in the 16 years I was at the consumer protection office,” said Owens, who lives in Houston.

Owens’ boss at the time was then-Attorney General Greg Abbott, who is now the state’s GOP governor.

The Associated Press first reported Thursday that Trump gave donations totaling $35,000 to Abbott’s gubernatorial campaign three years after his office closed the Trump U case. Several Texas media outlets

Here’s Hasen’s analysis of the impropriety of the Bondi donation. As mentioned before, Hasen is a professor of political science and law at UCI.

This good story by WaPo’s David Fahrenthold explains how a $25,000 contribution to Florida AG Bondi wound up illegally, and apparently inadvertently, getting paid out of the Trump Foundation account (which cannot make such political donations) rather than from Trump personally.  The explanation for how this happened seems plausible enough.

But the real scandal here is not that a payment came from a foundation but that Trump was giving money to Bondi while Bondi was deliberating over whether or not to investigate fraud allegations against Trump University. After the $25,000 donation, Bondi decided not to pursue the case.

Quid pro quo?  Not proven. But conflict of interest for the AG to solicit money from someone while contemplating a civil [corrected] investigation of that person? That stinks.

And imagine if Hillary Clinton had made a contribution to someone who was deciding whether to investigate her. That certainly would have been a bigger story.

This is a much worse pay-to-play problem than we’ve seen with the Clinton Foundation stories, at least what we know so far.

Meanwhile, coverage by the media has been scant with the exception of Joy Reid.  (Ask me about being one of the original Reiders!!!)  Media Matters gives this headline:  “CBS’ John Dickerson Is Only Sunday Host To Cover Trump Foundation’s Proven Lawbreaking”.

A Washington Post report that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump paid the IRS a $2,500 fine after his charitable foundation illegally gave a political contribution went mostly ignored by the cable and network Sunday political talk show hosts, with only CBS’ John Dickerson questioning a Trump surrogate about the story.

The September 1 Post article reported that the Donald J. Trump Foundation had “violated tax laws” with a $25,000 political contribution to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who at the time was deciding whether or not to take action against Trump University. The report also highlighted an error, “which had the effect of obscuring the political gift from the IRS.” According to the Post’s article, the Trump Foundation is still out of compliance because “under IRS rules, it appears that the Trump Foundation must seek to get the money back” from the group which should never have received it:

Donald Trump paid the IRS a $2,500 penalty this year, an official at Trump’s company said, after it was revealed that Trump’s charitable foundation had violated tax laws by giving a political contribution to a campaign group connected to Florida’s attorney general.

The improper donation, a $25,000 gift from the Donald J. Trump Foundation, was made in 2013. At the time, Attorney General Pam Bondi was considering whether to investigate fraud allegations against Trump University. She decided not to pursue the case.

Earlier this year, The Washington Post and a liberal watchdog group raised new questions about the three-year-old gift. The watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, filed a complaint with the IRS — noting that, as a registered nonprofit, the Trump Foundation was not allowed to make political donations.

The Post reported another error, which had the effect of obscuring the political gift from the IRS.

In that year’s tax filings, The Post reported, the Trump Foundation did not notify the IRS of this political donation. Instead, Trump’s foundation listed a donation — also for $25,000 — to a Kansas charity with a name similar to that of Bondi’s political group. In fact, Trump’s foundation had not given the Kansas group any money.

The prohibited gift was, in effect, replaced with an innocent-sounding but nonexistent donation.

With the breathless media hyping of every new detail about the Clinton Foundation, despite the lack of anything illegal occurring, one would think that the proof of lawbreaking by a charitable foundation founded and named for one of the two major party presidential nominees would attract significant attention from the media. But Face the Nation host John Dickerson was the only Sunday political talk show host to bring up thePost’s findings.

During his interview with Trump campaign surrogate Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), Dickerson cited the Post story to ask if it was an example of Trump knowing “how to use political donations to get the system to work for him” because in this situation Trump “gave the money then the investigation didn’t happen”

Karoli covers the Reid coverage and the lack of coverage by both FOX and CNN.

Last Friday, Washington Post reporter David Farenthold broke a blockbuster of a story about Donald Trump, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, and a clear-cut pay-to-play scheme. Our report on that is here.

It’s a blockbuster of a report that can leave no doubt about the fact that there was a quid pro quo between Bondi and Trump, with an equally clear effort to conceal it on the Trump Foundation reports.

In other words, it’s truly a scandal. A REAL scandal. One that should have dominated today’s Sunday shows and the newspaper headlines this weekend. Yet, there was no mention that I saw on any Sunday shows, and headlines are still dominated with bogus Clinton email stories.

Curiously, only MSNBC has reported the story at all. Joy Reid did a lengthy segment while sitting in for Chris Hayes on All In last Friday night, a bit of which we’ve clipped above. In the words of Joe Biden, this is a BFD.

After sitting through all of the Sunday shows today, I wondered about where all of the stories on this were, so I went on a hunt. I searched the transcripts for Fox News, CNN and MSNBC to see where they had done any reporting on this. There are also huge questions about whether Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also dropped a Trump University investigation after receiving $35,000 from Trump, but for now let’s focus on Bondi since the Trump Foundation admitted they sent her a contribution when they weren’t supposed to.

The last mention of Bondi on Fox News was on August 24th, ahead of a Trump rally where she was slated to warm up the crowd. Before that, the last mention was during the Republican National Convention, where she was a speaker.

There have been no mentions of Bondi whatsoever on CNN since Wolf Blitzer interviewed a Gold Star parent who talked about a meeting Bondi facilitated with Trump.

Meanwhile, Bondi is shocked !  Shocked I tell you!  Evidently, not opening an investigation isn’t the same as blocking it!  And maybe she’s mostly shocked because she got $10,000 less than Abbott.  Check out their cozy picture. Trump has a type, doesn’t he?

The alternative media and a few intrepid reporters in various outlets are giving this story legs. Meanwhile, I want to draw your attention to to journalists that are speaking out and loudly.

Charles Blow outlines the bleak state of Trump’s Soul. I wasn’t aware he had one.  The entire op-ed is here at the NYT.

“You have proudly brandished your abrasiveness, and now you want to whine and moan about your own abrasions,” Blow writes. “Not this day. Not the next day. Not ever. You will never shake the essence of yourself. Your soul is dark, your character corrupt. You are a reprobate and a charlatan who has ridden a wave of intolerance to its crest.”

He then reminds us of some of Trump’s greatest hits, including:

• His role in promoting the “birther” conspiracy theory about President Obama
• His claim that Mexico is intentionally sending rapists across the border into our country
• His lies about Muslims in New Jersey celebrating 9/11
• Mocking a disabled reporter and then lying about it
• Encouraging supporters to “knock the crap” out of protesters at his rallies

“You are not to be praised for your fourth quarter outreach, but reviled for it, because it contains contempt, not contrition,” Blow seethes. “Everything about this spectacle was offensive: that a black pastor had invited this money changer into the temple to defile it; that Trump was once again using the objects of his aggression for a last-ditch photo-op; that news media continue to call this an ‘outreach to black voters,’ when it’s clearly not.”

The best is from Soledad O’Brien who accuses CNN of mainstreaming White Supremacist thought.

From Raw Story: Soledad O’Brien eviscerates CNN: ‘You have normalized’ white supremacy with shoddy Trump reporting

Former CNN host Soledad O’Brien blasted the cable news business over the weekend for profiting off the hate speech that has fueled Donald Trump’s political rise.

According to O’Brien, the media had gone through “contortions to make things seem equal all the time” when comparing Trump to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

“If you look at Hillary Clinton’s speech where she basically pointed out that what Donald Trump has done — actually quite well — has normalized white supremacy,” O’Brien explained to CNN host Brian Stelter on Sunday. “I think she made a very good argument, almost like a lawyer. Here is ways in which he has actually worked to normalize conversations that many people find hateful.”

“I’ve seen on-air, white supremacists being interviewed because they are Trump delegates,” she noted. “And they do a five minute segment, the first minute or so talking about what they believe as white supremacists. So you have normalized that.”

“And then Donald Trump will say, ‘Hillary Clinton, she’s a bigot.’ And it’s covered, the journalist part comes in, ‘They trade barbs. He said she’s a bigot and she points out that he might be appealing to racists.’ It only becomes ‘he said, she said.’ When in actuality, the fact that Donald Trump said she’s a bigot without the long laundry list of evidence, which if you looked at Hillary Clinton’s speech, she actually did have a lot of really good factual evidence that we would all agree that are things that have happened and do exist. They are treated as if they are equal.”

O’Brien insisted “that’s where journalists are failing: the contortions to try to make it seem fair.”

The former CNN host argued that the question that journalists should be asking is if Trump is “softening the ground for people — who are white supremacists, who are white nationalists, who would self-identify that way — to feel comfortable with their views being brought into the national discourse to the point where they can do a five minute interview happily on national television?”

“And the answer is yes, clearly,” she said. “And there is lots of evidence of that.”

O’Brien observed that cable news outlets were effectively being rewarded for bad behavior.

This puts me in mind of the harping of the TV news readers on Hillary Clinton’s lack of press conferences.  She had a press conference.  The audience was Black and Hispanic Journalists.

Hillary Clinton’s running mate Tim Kaine told ‘This Week’ host Martha Raddatz that claims that Hillary Clinton is avoiding the press are not true. He also compared Donald Trump’s relationship with the press to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

“Secretary Clinton has not held a press conference in 274 days,” Raddatz noted. “Our campaign reporters and others say she doesn’t really answer that many questions. Is this going to change?”

“She’s had hundreds interviews in the last year,” Kaine replied. “And I’ve got to push back on the notion that she hasn’t done a press conference.”

Kaine referred to Clinton’s appearance last month at the Association of Black and Hispanic Journalists convention where “members of mainstream media outlets” were allowed to ask Clinton questions. “She did a press conference there,” Kaine said.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at the 2016 National Association of Black Journalists’ and National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ Hall of Fame Luncheon at Marriott Wardman Park in Washington, Friday, Aug. 5, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Here’s a headline that appeared in someplace other than CNN, FOX News, etc. from August 5, 2016 : Journalists grill Hillary Clinton at NABJ/NAHJ conference

Hillary Clinton held a mini-press conference of sorts with reporters Friday — and lived to tell the tale.

She spoke to the joint convention of the National Association of Black Journalists/National Association of Hispanic Journalists in Washington, D.C. and briefly dealt with what’s been her frustrating (for reporters) reluctance to hold a press conference.

She was more predictable and scripted than revealing and forthcoming as she answered a series of questions from NBC’s Kristen Welker and Telemundo’s Lori Montenegro, who then opened the proceeding up to questions from the audience.

Some drew very generic responses from a political pro, while others were a bit more ticklish but navigated without much apparent damage by her. But there was one surprisingly, and needlessly, awkward moment.

The two most notable questions perhaps came from Ed O’Keefe of The Washington Post and Kevin Merida, a former top Post editor who now oversees ESPN’s daily dissection of sports, race and culture, the Undefeated.

O’Keefe spoke to press chagrin with how a famously press-wary figure deals with the press following her on the campaign. Damning with a certain faint praise, he said, “We encourage you to do this more often with reporters across the country, especially those news organizations that travel the country with you whereever you go.”

He didn’t get any response to that comment. He did get a very Clinton-esque response when he got to his main query: How would she lead a nation where a majority of people mistrust her, according to survey?

Her answer: She’s been in the public arena long time, it’s in the opposition’s self-interest to stir the pot against her and, regardless, she will work to earn the trust of all Americans once elected.

I guess it’s only a press conference if the white boys get to do it.

So, I’ve run long. It’s a holiday and I’m sure you didn’t want this long form, documented rant from me but here it is!!

And, I’m giving my last word to the Rude Pundit.  Hillary Clinton is running for President too.

While we are all mesmerized by watching the ongoing train crash into a dumpster fire on top of a mountain of shit that is the Donald Trump campaign, we seem to be missing any coverage at all of what’s been going on with Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, aka “The Evilest Harpy Ever to Swoop from the Heavens to Devour Our Children and Our Testicles” or whatever right-wing media and Trump are calling her now.

Believe it or not, she has a campaign, too. I know. Hard to believe. And things happen with it that have nothing to do with love emails to ISIS or the Clinton Foundation digging a tunnel right to the State Department’s door or whatever we’re supposed to believe now. And some of those things happened just in this last week or so of watching Trump dance the merengue on the dreams of immigrants.

For instance, Clinton proposed a “Comprehensive Agenda on Mental Health,” something you’d think Donald Trump’s family would want him to get in on. A chunk of it already has bipartisan support in that the GOP-controlled House passed some of what she is proposing. Her full plan is incredibly detailed, with projected costs included, in a way that you’d never see on that other guy’s website for his idiot hordes. It’s smart and insightful, and it has real reform and compassion behind it. So no one gives a shit. If she had said, “Lock up the calm nuts and shoot the criminal ones in the streets like they’re rabid dogs,” the media would have been all over it, discussing the merits of such an extreme action.

Clinton also proposed a public health fund for things like the Zika outbreak. Yeah, “Rapid Response Fund” isn’t as glamorous as “big, beautiful wall,” but, you know, probably a great deal more useful.

She was also recently endorsed by the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, which has never endorsed a candidate in its 15 year existence. Oh, and the Teamsters endorsed her last week, making it the final of the 5 biggest unions in the United States to do so, none of which seem to be bothered by email bullshit or faux Foundation shenanigans. Or even Benghazi.

Yeah, in a normal campaign, where we actually treated the candidates in a normal way, we’d have a discussion about some of these things and their implications should Clinton become president.

But when one thing sucks up all the oxygen in the room, the rest of us suffocate.

Have a good Labor Day!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?