Sidney Blumenthal Got Paid, Which is Apparently a Scandal
The Los Angeles Times breaks what seems like a non-scandal.
Via memeorandum I came across an LAT piece titled “House Democrats mistakenly release transcript confirming big payout to Clinton friend Sidney Blumenthal.”
The Democrats on the House Benghazi committee released their final conclusions from the inquiry into attacks on Americans in that Libyan city in 2012, and in the report they say, once again, that the investigation is a politically motivated sham aimed at damaging the reputation of Hillary Clinton.
But the report, which the Democrats published as a preemptive strike before the Republican majority releases findings likely to charge ineptitude and deception by the former secretary of State, also revealed, apparently unintentionally, details about the eye-popping amount of money a close Clinton friend and advisor made in a contract with a pro-Clinton nonprofit.
[…]
And for Democrats, the exchange exposes once again the absurd amounts of money people in the orbit of the Clintons sometimes seem to rake in just for, well, being in the orbit of the Clintons. “I’d say it’s about $200,000 a year,” Blumenthal said when asked by a committee member how much the part-time work offering up advice and ideas was worth.
“Redacted due to Chairman Gowdy’s refusal to allow release of transcript,” says a footnote to the pages of thick black redaction marks. “If released, the transcript would show that Republicans asked Mr. Blumenthal questions about his relationship with Media Matters, David Brock and Correct the Record.” Brock is a longtime Clinton loyalist, and Correct the Record and Media Matters are among the nonprofits he uses to attack Clinton opponents.
And how did Blumenthal get such a contract? ”I have had a very long friendship with the chairman of Media Matters, whose name is David Brock, from before he founded this organization, and I have sustained that friendship. And he asked me to help provide ideas and advice to him and his organizations,” Blumenthal said.
I’m no fan of the Clintons and am very sympathetic to the notion that they have lived their entire political careers pushing the envelope on corruption, using the power and influence of their current or anticipated offices to enrich the spouse currently out of office as well as those who are in their good graces. But, for the life of me, I can’t see even the hint of a scandal in this particular story.
It’s true that Media Matters is pro-Clinton, but calling it a “pro-Clinton nonprofit” makes it seem like its founding purpose. It isn’t. Correct the Record, by contrast, makes no bones about what it is: “Correct The Record is a strategic research and rapid response team designed to defend Hillary Clinton from baseless attacks” is the entirety of the organization’s About page.
But . . . so what? Groups are allowed to be pro-Clinton, whether as their default position in a two-party race or as an overarching goal. Groups, whether pro-Clinton or otherwise, are allowed to hire consultants. Groups which hire consultants tend to pay them; indeed, that’s the nature of hiring. And, while $200,000 seems like a lot of money for part-time consulting work, Blumental is kind of a big deal and presumably commands a pretty penny for his time.
What am I missing here? LAT isn’t exactly a Republican shill organization; if anything, they’re apt sympathetic to Clinton given the current alternatives.
I can’t wait to see what the ninth investigation shows!
BTW, republicans have spent $100 million investigating the clintons and paying people to make allegations against the clintons (you think monica lewinski paid for that 7-figure Watergate Hotel apartment with intern money?). And found basically nothing. At this point, anybody who believes they’re “corrupt” any more than the typical politician, should be treated like a kid who still believes daddy’s coming back from that trip to get cigarettes 5 years ago.
Now, the people doing the investigating, Newt Gingrich, Dennis Hastert, Tom DeLay….
Wow, I’m surprised that George Soros isn’t somehow involved and implicated as a co-conspirator in this “Report.”
The Republican report is out and charges nothing of the sort…in fact…predictably…there is nothing new in it at all. Nothing. After two years and several million dollars…there is nothing that wasn’t reported in all the previous investigations.
If anything the Republican report VINDICATES Clinton.
So apparently the biggest news is that Blumenthal what is, I assume, a not unreasonable amount for a DC consultant.
Republican Senators make nearly that much for doing absolutely nothing.
The other thing that isn’t news is that Jenos Benghazi!!!! has been made a fool of, again.
Because BOTH SIDES DO IT! The papers have to report something to counter balance the non stop parade of lies, falsehoods, and racism coming from Trump. Otherwise, people will think they are biased for reporting facts.
So, we get another invented “scandal” they can report on to show “balance.”
Honestly, after 25 years of hearing the press breathlessly proclaim about one CLINTON SCANDAL!!!!! after another and then seeing the evidence evaporate every single time, it’s kind of ridiculous. It’s gotten to the point where even if the NYT had video evidence of HIllary killing Vince Foster with her lesbian lover, I wouldn’t believe it since the media has cried wolf too many times.
How many times did the GOP vote to repeal Obamacare? 57 times? 58 times? This was only the 8th Benghazi investigaton. There could be dozens more.
How hard do they have to work make something totally mundane sound sinister just through word choice? I’m half-expecting to see a story about Clinton going bowling with the President, and the headlines read, “Obama lands three strikes against Hillary.”
Add this to the never ending list of Clinton “scandals” which don’t have any heft on their own, but there are so many there must be something there.
There is the old tale of two Texas oilmen sitting in a bar. One says to the other, “I’m getting tired of all these new wannabe oilmen coming in here.” And the other says, “And they are so stupid. I’m going to start a rumor that someone struck oil in Hell and I’ll bet they’ll all pack up and leave!” And with that he hustled off to start the job.
Several weeks later there was a definite decline in the number of new oilmen and every train to Hell was packed full. The original oilman found himself sitting at that same bar, when his friend the rumor-monger came in, with a valise grasped in his hand.
“Where you off to?”
“Haven’t you heard!? They’ve struck oil in Hell!”
“What are you talking about? You started that rumor. You know it ain’t true!”
“Yeah, but so many people are heading there, there must be something to it!”
@al-Alameda:
LOL, where did you think the 200 grand per year was coming from? 🙂
Nine…Nine different investigations of Benghazi: the State Department’s Accountability Review Board and eight separate congressional committees or staff reports.
Each report has identified problems which are important and should be noted and corrected.
Not a single one has shown any evidence of an Obama administration cover-up or failure to respond.
Yet Republicans will not let this go, even now. Like all the other investigations that have proven nothing beyond an extramarital affair…yet James still insists on his notion…
Even when he acknowledges there is nothing, JJ is still discussing Clintons’ “corruption.” I can see one’s mind permeated with the constant marination of “scandals.” So much so that one becomes sympathetic to such notion. However, a skeptical mind would like to see actual proof of such and no, standard political behavior does not rise to scandal just because a Clinton is involved.
C. Clavin, when something is part of your identity for decades, it’s very, very hard and stressful to face the fact that it was a mistake.
Oh….and Donald Trump is now a born-again Christian.
http://www.charismanews.com/politics/elections/58042-dr-james-dobson-donald-trump-has-accepted-christ
I assume that Republicans are not familiar with the fable “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”…
The Clintons are proof positive that the only thing that many allegations of corruption proves is the existence of a corruption allegation generator.
Huh. Both GWB and JEB have made millions of dollars sitting on corporate boards and making paid speeches as private citizens. GWB made millions selling his stake in the Texas Rangers in what looks like a classic insider deal. Yet never once have I heard either James or Doug accuse the Bushes of corruption.
Maybe James can explain why he accuses the Clinton and excuses the Bushes for similar conduct. I think we are owed an explanation by now.
What’s your proof of this, James?
@HarvardLaw92:
How could I have overlooked that?
I have to admit that the 1st thing I thought of was The Vince Foster Trust.
@Raoul: @stonetools: @Rafer Janders: The Clintons have been in the public eye since the early 1980s and on the national stage for a quarter century now. They’ve constantly been enmeshed in scandal, including well before the Fox News era. A strong plurality of Democrats even find Hillary, in particular, corrupt.
Naomi Klein writes this for The Nation:
@James Joyner: Certainly I don’t mean to excuse them, but their behavior seems to be SOP in Washington as well as other places of power around the world…in this case, both sides really do it…that is the real problem…
@James Joyner:
Oh, I find it rich that you choose the Nation from which to quote. The Nation hates Clinton almost as much as The National Review.
All this “corruption”, yet investigation after investigation clears them.
“But . . . so what? Groups are allowed to be pro-Clinton, whether as their default position in a two-party race or as an overarching goal.”
Not if they are registered as a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization, as Media Matters is.
Per the IRS:
“Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity. Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.”
@James Joyner:
So it’s Clinton’s fault Big Pharma is f’ed up? Seriously? That’s what your notion is based on, James? WTF…
@James Joyner:
Wait, so the reason the Clinton’s are corrupt is because they work within the current system to lower drug prices in Africa, promote clean water projects in India and talk a billionaire into donating millions towards global warming research?
That’s just ridiculous. Naomi Klein might not agree but this is the way virtually every charitable organization works. They encourage/guilt/schmooze wealthy donors into supporting their programs. If this is corrupt then the American Red Cross is corrupt. Planned Parenthood. The NRA. The March of Dimes. You name it. Naomi Klein, who isn’t responsible for raising money to fund a charitable organization, feels that “all those people” should not deign to ask the rich and powerful for donations, and by “all those people” she really means “exclusively the Clinton’s”.
James, that passage was the most ridiculous “proof” of corruption I’ve ever heard in my life.
Well I’ll bet that’s the first time (and possibly the last) that James has favorably quoted Naomi Klein. That bill of outrages she recites is a little odd, isn’t it?
@James Joyner: Naomi Klein isn’t a Democrat, she’s a Canadian socialist. What’s next, are you going to start quoting Noam Chomsky to prove Clinton hatred is valid and bipartisan?
@James Joyner: Never thought I’d see a Republican/Libertarian object to someone making money legally.
@James Joyner:
It seems to me what they’ve been enmeshed in is inflated claims of scandal, rather than actual scandal. The fact that much of this was pre-Fox doesn’t mean that there weren’t overt, well-organized efforts to carry that flag. White Water, Travelgate, Vince Foster, the list goes on and on. Benghazi, with its 7 (yes, count them 7) separate Congressional investigations was the just the cherry on top.
What your comment goes on to demonstrate clearly is that the libel worked.
None of this is to say that Hilary is some kind of angel. She most certainly isn’t. But to claims that she is somehow exceptionally flawed, my consistent response is: “show me the evidence”.
They never do.
@James Joyner:
Those monsters.
@MarkedMan:
I actually laughed out loud at James when I read it.
@EddieInCA: @Rafer Janders: @Facebones: Given the nature of the Google algorithm, it’s challenging to find coherent summaries of these sort of things. The Nation is a hard left organ and I certainly don’t agree with them, or Klein, on most things. I don’t even agree with every point of Klein’s critique here. But she aptly describes the Clinton Way of influence peddling here. They’ve made themselves rich selling access to their power, mostly in ways that are technically legal. I’d argue that what they’ve done is far more gross than what Bob McDonnell did here in Virginia, which was penny ante. And I think McDonnell has demonstrated his unfitness for office with said conduct.
…which is pretty much the ONLY way any good gets done, anywhere, ever. (I exaggerate, slightly. Sometimes change can come with confrontation, but it’s rare–and that’s key.)
Confronting the industries listed means running smack-dab into a wall of lobbyists, who have every right to defend the companies that employ them against legislation that they perceive harms their interests. That’s where you end up with a big, fat, zero–much like the current conditions in Congress.
Taking the example of partnering with drug companies in Africa: changing the patenting protection would take decades, while–frankly–people die. Partnering gets them the help they need now, AND it provides evidence to the companies involved that they can in fact continue to survive while doing at least some good. And once that partnership is long-running and established, is it not then easier to say “okay, you’ve done x, y, and z…now how about giving ground on the patent issue so that we can reach goal A?”
I am frustrated beyond description about how compromise and working together became a code word for capitulation, or in any case concerning the Clintons (but not Cheney, or Bush, etc.), amounting to corruption.
@James Joyner:
Kind of disingenuous to put the cut off date at the birth of Fox News. This scandal coverage was certainly not before Rush Limbaugh. Or the Arkansas Project. Or Richard Mellon Scaife. Remember them? And how all the conservatives made fun of Hillary for pointing out there was a vast right wing conspiracy against her and Bill? Never mind that she was exactly right.
The point of those outrage engines was to get the press to keep saying “scandal” next to the word “Clinton” and get the public to think that there must be a scandal in there somewhere! The press keep talking about it. But after 25 years and countless investigations and an attempted impeachment, all they found out was that Bill enjoys oral sex.
And now the umpeenth Benghazi investigation has turned up nothing. Give it up. Just admit that the vast majority of these so called scandals are right wing media creations. You just don’t want to vote for Hillary because she’s a girl and has icky liberal cooties.
@James Joyner:
Keep in mind that several years ago James and I had a long and contentious argument about James’ claim that Mike Dukakis, Walter Mondale, and Jimmy Carter were “hard left” candidates….
Actually, Hillary went on the Today Show to deny that her husband had an affair with a White House intern. She tried to blame the “vast right wing conspiracy” for something that Bill Clinton actually did. She was exactly wrong. That’s why conservatives made fun of her.
@James Joyner:
Naomi Klein, whom you quote, would have even more of a problem with the Bushes for the exact reason. But I don’t recall you condemning the Bushes for the same kind of coziness with the rich and powerful. Why is that?Is this just a blind spot for you?
As for the Blumenthal thing, kudos for calling it a nothing burger. That is a classic example of the Clinton Rules-the tendency for even the so called liberal media to condemn Clinton for what doesn’t even merit comment for anyone else.
When was the last time any Bush got condemned for hiring a friend at a high salary for consulting work?
@James Joyner:
Name for me every time the Clintons, while in public office, were proved to have done anything like what McDonnell did.
Noted without comment.
@James Joyner:
Shorter James Joyner:
The Clintons are corrupt, because [Citation Needed].
@James Joyner:
But James, what is it specifically that they’ve done. You realize that the three examples you quoted above had to do with them raising money for charitable projects not for them raising money for themselves? This is typical of Clinton bashers, they produce a few actual lies over a lifetime and then that absolute certainty that there must be much much more if only they could find, you know, a list…
OK, my apologies, my last email overdid it on the snark. I guess I’m sensitive in this area. There are three times in my life that I really felt a politician was getting a raw deal.
First was John McCain. He got caught up in the Keating 5 scandal (7? 3? I think it was a prime number…). I was just back from an overseas assignment and I listened to hours and hours of testimony on public radio, and came away with the conclusion that McCain’s case was different from the others. He had tried to help a constituent, but then found that constituent was slimy and tried to extricate himself. But the press painted all of the Keating crew with the same brush.
Second was Al Gore. I am so old, that as a young intern engineeer I was on the internet before it was the internet. A lot of things I connected to had “DARPA” or “ARPA” in them. And Al Gore as a Senator asked to chair the committee that, among other things, made that system into what has become the internet. His Senate opposition mocked him for talking about the “Information Superhighway” and painting fantastical pictures that someday people would buy things over a computer network. And he worked hard and he fought for it. And then someone who was a no-account drunkard during the same time used that against him, spreading the false rumor that Al Gore claimed to have invented the internet.
And so maybe I was primed to be sensitive to the “Hillary Clinton is corrupt” meme. Has she done unethical things? Yes. The “tip” she received that allowed her to turn a $1000 investment into a $100K (I think I have the ratio right, I might not have the numbers down) has never smelled right. And the idea that she didn’t come down like the wrath of god on the travel agents that p*ssed her off has always seemed like BS. Maybe there’s a few others. But the other so called endless list feel like total BS. Clinton has always, always, always talked about working the system you have to accomplish goals. She has never pretended to be a revolutionary. She is LBJ, not McGovern. The idea that this working the system is somehow her tie to sleaze is just BS. That’s what she does and she doesn’t hide it. And for her – she’s right. That’s how someone with her personality gets things done. When she was my NY Senator she developed a reputation for getting things done because she a) gave up credit and b) volunteered to do the grunt work of hammering out the legislation. And that’s a good thing, not a bad thing.
@Rafer Janders: @stonetools: They’re the Clintons; what additional proof could you possibly need? We’ve always known that they are corrupt.
And there’s something about them being involved in Eastasia, too, but I forget what.
@Facebones: I can understand James’ point. In the words of the old joke, “that money is all tainted–t’aint his!”
Well now it’s time for her to return the favor, as Trey Gowdy and his band of idiots look completely ridiculous…
@Gavrilo: But my understanding from several house hearings is that the IRS is supposed to approve any applications like this quickly and uncritically? We have been hearing that for a few years.
Quoted from the LATimes of 4Nov89:
“I find it quite amusing that the few quaint liberals remaining in the United States are suffering acute dyspepsia from Ronald Reagan’s $2 Million fee from a Japanese corporation.
“I believe that liberals are revealing the socialist underpinnings of their ossified philosophy or they are just straight out envious and covetous (please see: Ten Commandments).
“How much compensation Reagan, or Lee Iacocco or the San Diego Chicken is really none of the business of our currently frustrated social engineering cadre. We are only worth what someone will pay for our services….”
Apparently a letter to the editor from a conservative.
Gosh, Dr Joyner! How does it feel to know that you have become a member of ‘our currently frustrated social engineering cadre?’ And with an ‘ossified philosophy’ to boot!
At risk of a bludgeoning, I’m going to defend James a little bit. I don’t like this Clinton story, for example:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/06/10/how_clinton_donor_rajiv_fernando_got_a_job_as_a_nuclear_expert_he_wasn_t.html
This may not quite sink to the level of ‘scandal’, but it’s not much of an improvement over what Bob McConnell was doing.
So, in other words, the Supreme Court won’t have a problem with it…
Republicans throw mud at Hillary. If they throw enough mud, for long enough, they manage to leave an impression that Hillary is dirty.
In fact, it’s Republicans who are dirty. It’s Republicans who lack any sense of decency or proportion. It’s Republicans who are indifferent to facts. Republicans are every bad thing we liberals have ever said about them. I’m sorry, but it’s true, as evidenced by the fact that so many Republicans are now saying those same bad things about their own party.
Republicans hate Hillary because she is a woman. Republicans do not like women unless they have great legs and a big pile of bleached blond hair on their heads. The GOP is a racist party, and it is also a misogynist party.
Again: as Democrats have been saying since forever. The GOP wants to use the law to allow men to impose their choices on women. Who fights equal pay laws? Republicans. Who tries to deny women control over their own pregnancies? Republicans. Who wants to harass welfare recipients – largely female – with drug tests and other burdens? Republicans. Who fought against Title 9? Republicans. Who fights against family leave? Republicans. Any legislation that equalizes treatment of men and women is opposed by Republicans.
The Republican Party is of, by and for white Christian males. It is the official party of white Christian males. White Christian males who want African-Americans and Latinos in subordinate positions, white Christian males who want the same for women, white Christian males who want to impose Christianity and denigrate alternate faiths or lack of faith. The difference between the ideology of the Ku Klux Klan and the ideology of the GOP is one of degree, not of kind.