Apparently, Fox News thought it would get a GOP twofer yesterday when the network presented Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi as an honest, straight shooter who argued that the latest development in the Hillary Clinton email saga disqualified her to be president. What Fox didn’t tell its viewers is that Trump-supporter Bondi is under quite the ethics cloud for having taken a $25,000 donation from the Trump foundation right before she decided not to investigate Trump University for fraud.
Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell has a terrific breakdown of Bondi’s position of being either shockingly stupid and inept or shockingly corrupt when she took the donation:
She asked people to believe that, when a committee supporting her campaign took $25,000 from Donald Trump on Sept. 17, 2013, she had no idea that her office had been asked to investigate him.
Even though a week earlier, her spokeswoman had told media that Bondi’s office was “reviewing” complaints against Trump.
And even though, two weeks before that, email records show that Bondi’s top staffers – at least nine of them, including her chief of staff and deputy attorney general — had been discussing the matter in a string of emails labeled “Press Inquiry from 8/29/13 - Trump.”
No, Bondi claimed last week that the first she learned about all this Trump business was when she read my column nearly two months later in October.
When you’re claiming a newspaper columnist knows more about what’s going on in your office than you do, you have a problem.
Furthermore, as The New York Times reported, the $25,000 came from the Trump Foundation which cannot lawfully make political donations.
It's bad enough the “we report, you decide” network kept this very significant information about Bondi from its viewers. But in doing so – and then hosting her as a credible guest to attack Clinton’s ethics – Fox worked to rehab Bondi at the same time it used her to knock Clinton.
On top of all that, Bondi overstated the latest Clinton developments in order to go for a maximum smear factor.
BONDI: What’s happening today is unprecedented. For an FBI Director with, at that time, 11, 12 days out from an election, to come out and say that Hillary Clinton is under a federal investigation … there must be something strong there for Director Comey to do that.
Host Neil Cavuto sort of challenged her by asking what she thought FBI Director James Comey found and read from his letter in which he “tried to dial this back a little bit,” as Cavuot put it.
But Bondi had no idea what might have been found and she had the nerve to defend her cluelessness by cloaking it in concern for integrity.
BONDI: You cannot jeopardize the integrity of a pending criminal investigation nor does any prosecutor in this country or especially the FBI. The FBI they keep everything quiet until the conclusion of their investigation, but I have to commend him though for coming out again and saying there’s more.
[…]
Let me put it this way Neil. If I went to apply for a job right now, I wanted to get a bar license in another state, and I listed I was under federal investigation, I wouldn’t get the job. You went to apply, you wouldn’t get a job. Someone goes to get a real estate license, they wouldn’t get a job.
In fact, it looks very much like there is nothing of significance in the latest email batch. But not only is Fox going to hype this story as long as it can, the network is willing to do so with someone who may be the most corrupt or inept (or both) state attorney general in the country.
Watch it below, from the October 29, 2016 Cost of Freedom special.
I remember a documentary about neonazies and the KKK in America. At their rallys. I was struck by this one middle aged guy. No tats. No swastikas. Wearing a proper business suit directing traffic into his idea of perfect parking. Epiphany. These assholes are about control at every level of life.
Free states my ass.
It is so out-of-kilter when one party leans over backwards to be fair to all while the other prizes partisanship, game-playing and vengeance above any other concerns.
It would be hard to achieve, for sure, but I believe the only way forward is to end political patronage completely and make all appointments from career public servants with unblemished records and special expertise in the area they are employed.
In case anyone has forgotten – “Heck of a job, Brownie.”
Pam Bondi is really small potatoes compared to Governor Rick Scott though. He was convicted of ripping off Medicare and fined $1.7B.
So, to answer Bondi’s question on hiring people under indictment, Fox News had no problem hiring Oliver North. He’s an obvious criminal indicted on 3 felonies only getting off [ironically] with the help of the ACLU [who the Foxies hate with a passion for being evil libs] eventually on technicalities.
Of course, to Fox, North is a hero. He stood up to those horrible Democrats in Congress and took a sword for St. Reagan.
On a much smaller scale, Bondi has gained name recognition nationally based upon corruption scandals so she ironiclaly becomes a go-to Republican personality for Fox to carry water for the brand.
I’m watching CNN’s “Reliable Sources” covering the Comey email stink bomb. And it’s coming out Der Furor is now raging on Twitter ironically that big Internet players like Google, Twitter, and Facebook are part of a liberal plot to suppress the story. Seriously. Hair Hitler is screaming at the top of his lungs (or keyboard?) they are not allowing the story to trend. Of course, CNN looks into Trump’s claims and finds The Donald is simply lying once again.