Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Paid to Riot: No Story?

I'm sure that we're all now aware from the Wikileaks emails that, according to senior Hillary Clinton campaign official John Podesta, the Clinton campaign itself, presumably through laundered money and surrogates, actually paid people to riot and incite violence at Donald Trump rallies and events.  It was also apparent through these emails that Mrs. Clinton was aware of this effort -- a question to that effect was actually asked and answered in a parallel research effort, complete with videotapes.

And so ... I'd like to ask a few questions.  And so should the American public, and certainly so should the press.  Of course, those questions will not be asked, let alone answered.

(1) Hillary was aware of the fact that rioters were paid to cause violence at Trump rallies; that is now out there and she can't deny it.  There is no plausible deniability available when someone asks on video, for the record, if she knew about the activities and the answer is "yes."  People get hurt when violence is incited; that's what "violence" means.

Why did Hillary Clinton not respond immediately when the suggestion to pay rioters was raised, by saying that such activities were not to be tolerated on her campaign?

(2) Actual people are shown discussing actual plans to incite actual riots.  They're right there on tape, and it is quite clear who those people are that are doing so.  Incitement to riot is illegal; conspiracy to do so or to commit violence is illegal; it is similarly a violation of Federal election law to do all that stuff.  We know who those people are -- it's a video.

Why is the FBI not opening an immediate criminal investigation into these activities, subpoenaing witnesses and hauling the people on the videotape up for a heavy grilling on this activity under penalty of law?

(3) The immediate answer by any Democrat in regard to anything associated with this explosive revelation, or anything else associated with the illegal activity here, is to parrot back the party line, which is "Russians Russians Russians Russians Russians."  Because the Russians might have been the ones to (or if you ask any Democrat, "did") hack into Podesta's email, the contents of anything found there, no matter how repugnant, are apparently less of an issue than the suggestion that the nasty old Russians were involved.

Why was Chris Wallace the only one in the entire press corps, from any news organization whatsoever, with the opportunity to ask Mrs. Clinton directly anything whatsoever associated with the content of the emails, who has actually tried to ask her that? 

I have to say, I wish that Wallace had not let her go on about the Russians for so long, and had made her answer the question.  It was so predictable that when I was watching the debate, and he asked her a question about one of the Wikileaks revelations, I turned to my best girl while he was just starting to ask the question, and said "Watch her ... it'll be RussiansRussiansRussiansRussians", and sure enough, it was.

It is quite evident that there were serious criminal activities and serious violation of election laws exposed in the last two weeks.  The Russians didn't do that.  The press need to be writing about this and asking Hillary and her campaign some bloody serious questions and making them answer them without the word "Russians" in the answer.

More importantly, though, the FBI has a big, fat investigation staring it in the face that, I'm afraid, may never get started, and certainly not before the election.

That's a bloody shame for my country.

Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
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