Democratic
presidential candidate Hillary Clinton waits to be introduced during a rally at
Western Technical College in La Crosse on Tuesday. Credit: Associated Press
Nothing matters more to leadership in a democracy than
support for an open, honest government in which citizens are informed and in
charge. It is the foundational building block of the republic upon which all
else rests. And any candidate vying for the votes of the American people needs
to have demonstrated a firm commitment not only to the ideal but to the reality
of open government.
As we noted Tuesday, Republican front-runner Donald Trump
is not one of those candidates. But neither is Democratic front-runner Hillary
Clinton. Her horrible track record on transparency raises serious concerns for
open government under a Clinton administration — so serious we believe they may
disqualify her from public office. We hope Wisconsin voters give this issue the
consideration it deserves when they go to the polls on Tuesday.
The issue immediately at hand — and under investigation
by the FBI — is Clinton's use of a private email server for State Department
communications. Clinton may have violated national security laws by making top
secret documents vulnerable to hackers and available to people without proper
security clearance. Violating those laws rightly ended the public service
career of Gen. David Petraeus when he was President Barack Obama's CIA
director. The FBI and Justice Department must be free to fully investigate and,
if warranted, prosecute Clinton in this matter without any political
interference from the Obama administration.
In addition, regardless of Clinton's excuses, the only
believable reason for the private server in her basement was to keep her emails
out of the public eye by willfully avoiding freedom of information laws. No
president, no secretary of state, no public official at any level is above the
law. She chose to ignore it, and must face the consequences.
In a lengthy Washington Post article on Sunday, Robert
O'Harrow Jr. notes that from the earliest days of her service as secretary of
state, "Clinton aides and senior officials focused intently on
accommodating the secretary's desire to use her private email account,
documents and interviews show.
"Throughout, they paid insufficient attention to
laws and regulations governing the handling of classified material and the
preservation of government records, interviews and documents show. They also
neglected repeated warnings about the security of the BlackBerry while Clinton
and her closest aides took obvious security risks in using the basement
server."
Last month, in a hearing about a Judicial Watch lawsuit,
U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said legitimate questions have been
raised about whether Clinton's staff was trying to help her to sidestep the
Freedom of Information Act.
"We're talking about a Cabinet-level official who
was accommodated by the government for reasons unknown to the public,"
Sullivan said. "And I think that's a fair statement: For reasons
heretofore unknown to the public. And all the public can do is speculate."
"This is all about the public's right to know,"
Sullivan added.
This is hardly the first time Clinton has tried to
sidestep the public eye. Last year, Pro Publica noted five such
episodes:
In 1992, during Bill Clinton's first run for office, the
Clintons declined to release all of their tax returns because, it turned out, a
few of the returns showed Hillary Clinton's incredible success in commodities
trading when Bill Clinton was attorney general and then governor of Arkansas.
She made almost $100,000 from an initial investment of $1,000 in a matter of
months — a return of 10,000% — under the guidance of a lawyer who was also
outside counsel to Tyson Foods Inc., Arkansas' largest employer. The returns
weren't made public until 1994.
In 1993, Hillary Clinton led a presidential task force to
overhaul the U.S. health care system. The effort ultimately failed but the
group came under intense criticism from lawmakers and
interest groups for meeting behind closed doors. Several court challenges were
brought in an attempt to open the process.
In 1994, U.S. investigators subpoenaed Clinton's billing
records from her years at the Rose Firm in Little Rock, Ark. — documents that
also had been sought by reporters. Of key interest was Clinton's legal work for
a failing savings and loan, but records of those billings weren't found. Pro
Publica: "Much later, Clinton's longtime assistant, Carolyn Huber, said
she found in the White
House residence an additional box of records that contained the billing
memos. They were turned over to the independent counsel in 1996. Clinton testified
she had no knowledge of how the records wound up where they did."
As a senator in 2006, Clinton set up an energy task force
that produced a 40-page report. That by itself is not unusual, but this was:
The existence of the group, its members and its work product were all kept
secret. Turned out the leader of the task force headed an investment firm with
major holdings in the energy sector.
Public officials keep secrets because they have something
to hide — something they don't want the people they are supposed to be serving
to know anything about.
Last year, the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton
Foundation became an issue. Donors are identified but not the exact amount of
each donation or the date of those contributions. And the foundation did not
reveal that it was raising money from foreign governments until after Hillary
Clinton left office as secretary of state, an office with power over foreign
affairs and favors second only to the president's.
Then there are the closed-door speeches to Wall Street
financial investment firms, for which she received hundreds of thousands of
dollars apiece.
These off-the-record speeches were delivered after
Clinton left the State Department and was preparing for her second bid for the
White House. Clinton has refused to release transcripts of the speeches, saying
she would do so only if other politicians released transcripts of their
speeches. But that, as The New York Times noted in a February
editorial, is a child's excuse.
"Voters have every right to know what Mrs. Clinton
told these groups.... By refusing to release them all, especially the bank
speeches, Mrs. Clinton fuels speculation about why she's
stonewalling," the Times editorial said.
Sen. Bernie Sanders has used the fees she was paid for
the speeches by the most powerful firms on Wall Street against Clinton in their
race for the nomination. Of equal concern is the secrecy involved and Clinton's
continuing refusal to release the transcripts of what she told the investment
bankers.
Clinton has a long track record of public service but an
equally long record of obfuscation, secrecy and working in the shadows to boost
her power and further her ambition. We encourage voters to think long and hard
about that record when choosing the next president.
