Happy Birthday as Katrina floods New Orleans:
Story at ThinkProgress
A Skank Scolds
Story at CNN
Fancy Seeing You Here
Story at AZ Central
A still shot captured from a video of AG Loretta Lynch deplaning at PHX:
No photo of Lynch and Clinton meeting on the tarmac or Clinton boarding Lynch’s plane. Christopher Sign’s report
(O’Reilly is running with other information that he claims he got from Sign (which is heating up the rightwing blogosphere as they all repeat the claims), but until there is confirmation from Signs or other observers to the events, repeating it would be irresponsible.)
Sure wish credible reporters would check into this story (plenty of easy questions that need answering). The explanation that Lynch offered was so stinky that today: Loretta Lynch Says She Won’t Intervene to Save Hillary Clinton as reported by The Atlantic:
If the FBI and federal prosecutors in the Justice Department decide to bring charges against Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server as secretary of state, Attorney General Loretta Lynch won’t stop them.
Lynch plans to announce later Friday at the Aspen Ideas Festival that she will accept the recommendations of career prosecutors leading the Clinton investigation, according to several reports. The news comes after the disclosure that Lynch met privately with former President Bill Clinton aboard her government plane at the Phoenix airport–a chat that drew criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike for giving off the appearance of impropriety at a time when the Justice Department is investigating his wife. Lynch has said her meeting with Bill Clinton was unplanned and purely social.
…
Your guess as to how and why Lynch met up with Bill Clinton on her private jet.
UPDATE — I find this curious. Christopher Sign is the ABC15 Arizona reporter that broke the Lynch-Clinton “tarmac” meeting story. Filed both on air and in writing (same link as above). What ABC15 went with was the basic story (WJC met with Lynch at PHX on her airplane) that he had verified with Lynch at her news conference at some point during her Phoenix visit.
Subsequent to Sign’s ABC report, he appeared on the O’Reilly Factor. In this appearance he related far more information about what had been visible to an observer in the private airplane section of PHX. However, Sign secured this from a source “that he trusts.” Understandable that ABC15 didn’t want to go with an unverified second-hand report, but it’s interesting that an a news anchor with eleven years at the station would take the story to a rival network. Here’s what he got from his source:
It’s a big scoop. If true and verified. (Or perhaps good enough for Fox (or the NYTimes) if it’s not verified and may not be true.) Seems to me that FBI has some explaining to do if they issued a no photos, etc. order.
The Guardian — Loretta Lynch: Bill Clinton meeting ‘cast shadow’ over email server investigation
ha-ha.
In their JW depositions, Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin also said that they wouldn’t do it again (after saying that they didn’t know and/or recall much of anything or think about HRC’s decision to operate her own private communication hub and not use the DOS-USG system. Doesn’t inspire confidence that they have the requisite professional and cognitive skills not to make major errors in the future.
However, Lynch’s mistake, if that was what it was, is not one that someone in her capacity should even have to think about much less commit. My guess (and it’s only a guess) is that the meeting was prearranged and the expectation was that it wouldn’t be seen and reported by anyone.
from the story today I’m more of the opinion that he ambushed her. anyway, still a few weeks before he becomes the unofficial v.p. candidate.
Has Bill Clinton issued a statement on his meeting with Lynch? From what I’ve seen so far, it seems as if Lynch is the one that has bee hung out there.
This Observer interview with an individual that claims to have been there and claims to be opposed to whatever Clinton and Lynch support differs in important details form what Sign’s source told him.
Is it standard protocol for the FBI to order no photos, cell phones, etc. for those within secured areas that could see AG Lynch arriving or departing from an airport? Does the Secret Service have a similar protocol?
If this were planned hush-hush meeting, the optics would look similar to the portions of the reports that seem to be in agreement. That would be that WJC walked onto Lynch’s plane and talked with her for 25-30 minutes. Leaking that Bill blindsided Lynch has a degree of plausibility given his reported election day antics in a few states this year. Yet, walking into a public space (as entitled as he apparently believes he is) is not the same thing as walking onto a private airplane parked on a tarmac that has a security detail. Why didn’t her staff hustle her off the plane within a few minutes of Clinton blindsiding her?
I’m not going to make any guess as to whether this was completely spontaneous and unilateral on the part of WJC, was pre-planned and unilateral by WJC, or was arranged through her guy and his guy because the information currently available doesn’t clearly point to any one of those three scenarios.
Meant to add that WJC’s guys have put out there that when he runs into other politicians that he knows (presumably celebrities as well) at airports or on tarmacs, he always stops and chats with them. However, he didn’t run into Lynch — had to seek her out.
Was this accidental on his part because he’s a boor or on purpose to put Lynch in a compromising position?
imo clearly not accidental. his private jet would allow him to “accidentally” land around her scheduled arrival/ departure. will read your link now. I doubt she’d arrange a meeting with him, she seems to be all business
I’m going to agree that Lynch has a record of not politicizing her jobs and reputation and therefore, has earned the benefit of doubt in this instance. Then again, we’re talking about Bill Clinton and I remain shocked at the large number of politicians that I had respect that have rolled over to support Hillary this year.
wrt to WJC travel schedule, the reports so far have been consistent the he arrived in Phoenix sometime before Lynch did and his motorcade took him somewhere to do something and returned to PHX near the time that Lynch’s plane landed. His plane appears to have been scheduled to takeoff before Lynch’s landed, but the reports for his delay are varied. Lynch suggested that Clinton had played gold in Phoenix and another report said he was there for a HRC fundraiser. Could have done both.
the circle is not complete:
Lee Fang, The Intercept – Major Political News Outlets Offer Interviews for Sale at the RNC and DNC Conventions
Guess major political news outlets figured it’s time that rich folks directly buy them along with the politicians.
Hmm, thought provoking…
“Is it possible that Bill Clinton isn’t that dumb and knew what he was doing when he went to talk to Loretta Lynch for 30 minutes?
Everyone retreats to their respective bubbles and the issues are no longer discussed. Democrats say it’s no big deal and get mad at Republicans for saying it’s a big deal. We have to elect Hillary to stop these tribal Republicans who define their own truth!” (Peter K, Economist’s View)
Is it just me or it is curious that Bill has yet to issue a statement on his accidental tete-a-tete with Loretta Lynch?
Oh, here we go: WaPo – How everyone looks bad because Bill Clinton met with Loretta Lynch
And lord knows the HillFans don’t need no stinkin statement from Bill and/or Hill to declare that they are innocent.
WaPo continues to repeat what should have been junked nearly two decades ago because it’s false:
He’s like the teflon kid when it comes to “striking error of judgment.”
Hillary on MTP – July 3, 2016
Point #1 — It was NOT a “meeting on an airport tarmac.” Loretta Lynch and not deplaned and WJC barreled onto her plane. Neither her nor his security details interfered with his movements.
Point #2 – No “both of their planes were NOT landing at the same time. His plane had landed some hours before then and it had been scheduled to depart before Lynch’s arrived.
Point #3 – social chit-chat about grandkids, golf, and Janet Reno for thirty minutes?
Point #4 – there was nothing wrong with what Bill and Loretta did, but they wouldn’t do it again. How many times has Hillary used that line? Poor judgment again and again, and in almost all of those instances there was something wrong beyond poor judgment.
after watching the Sign video not sure what I think. any thought?
Thinking out loud.
Recall that Sign made two reports. One on-air and the second one in written form. The second one included details that weren’t part of his on-air report. What I’m missing is exactly when his two reports were released, but my impression is that both were after getting confirmation from Lynch of the meeting. I don’t doubt that both were accurate as far as what Lynch’s primary source and secondary confirmation told him. However, as we know, eyewitnesses too often muck up details. In my mind that would explain why his TV editor only allowed him to go with the basics.
Sign is the ABC15 Morning anchor. The anchors are on and off-air from 4:30 AM until 12:00 PM. Sign disclosed that he was at the end of his shift when he received the tip. Have yet to see a report that has nailed down when Lynch’s plane arrives and what Clinton’s schedule was that day. We know what Lynch did after arriving in Phoenix. Sign’s report suggested that he queried Lynch at a news conference later that day.
Here’s the earliest report of the meeting from PBS-AZ on Tuesday 6/28. (The accompanying photo is from Monday as that is what she was wearing when she deplaned.) It was presented as a fact of no importance.
As Sign’s reports are dated 6/29 and his on-air report was not during his morning show, it doesn’t appear that he was in the lead on having the story. However, it does appear that he was in the lead on working it. Best guess on “trusted source(s)” for details and confirmation either airport employees or local FBI. However, his source(s) either didn’t see/observe much or withheld from him. No question that his 6/29 on-air report is what pushed the story to the front page.
It now appears that Lynch would have landed sometime between four and seven. As she could spare thirty minutes to meet with Bill, six o’clock or earlier fits better. The sticky-wicket is the absence of photos/videos at the airport except for the one with Lynch deplaning. Thus, we know that at least one camera person was present and the FBI didn’t stop that person from filming and innocuous image of the AG arriving in Phoenix for appearances that had been reported earlier.
The FBI was Lynch’s security detail and not Clinton’s. Would the FBI have issued or participated in a “no photo” order from the Secret Service? Not sure order is quite correct as those that work private plane facilities are as tight-lipped as the secret service. Perhaps it was more like when the news camera person could be given the okay to enter and record. She/he may not have perceived anything unique or saw anything curious. (Limos and security for VIPs at airports isn’t rare and the identity of the VIP remains hidden.)
So, I still have a problem with numerous FBI personnel standing down as WJC “ambushed” Lynch. They aren’t dummies and all would have known that this was a potentially damaging encounter for the boss. If while at the airport, Bill or his guy phoned Lynch or her guy requesting a serendipitous meet-and-greet, then Lynch invited Bill to join her on her plane and that’s even more compromising of her position than if Bill took it upon himself to jump onto her plane. If Bill completely ambushed Lynch, her security detail would not have received any message from Lynch to let Bill on her plane. If they didn’t, they weren’t properly doing their job. If they did, then Lynch wasn’t ambushed.
well, I just don’t know. my other Q – how did shr have a spare half hour for him? that’s a lot of minutes for her
Don’t have an answer. However, there are three basic plausible scenarios.
If it was pre-planned, it would have been built into her schedule. PHX could have been selected as it had the largest open window and might also be the place where the meeting had the lowest probability of being detected by outsiders.
If it were a Clinton ambush wouldn’t have been that difficult to calculate the best opportunity during her tour to attack. Or it could have been completely serendipitous. He was there, she arrived, and he said to self, “I’m just gonna mosey on over and chew the fat with my old friend Loretta.” As he’s chronically late for his own appearances, he wouldn’t have been concerned with whether she could or couldn’t spare time for him; the world is supposed to make time for VSP.
It sounds very folksy, as in an oh shucks way, I am just a regular guy hanging around here, it was just a meeting on an airport tarmac. I promise roses to anyone who can prove to me that they really think this meeting was coincidental and, not only that, social. We all meet are friends and acquaintances on airport tarmacs. And everyone who meets like that are friends.
McCain-GWB met on a PHX tarmac. Obama-Brewer met on a PHX tarmac. Lynch-Clinton did not meet on a PHX tarmac.
Yes I understand that but Ms Clinton said they did. That’s where the deception gestates.
Remember last time she said something happened on a tarmac? Guess she figures that this time photos won’t appear that proves she’s lying again.
She obviously has a fantasy about tarmacs, a fixation, all the action is there, lots of backbone.
Q — is that you at MOA and like me got a Bush v. Gore deja vu with Comey’s “‘To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary…’?”
Someone needs to write a manual — Whistleblower Wannabes: ‘Get Smart.’ Leave no mens rea tracks. Bumble your way to having secret stuff stolen from you and released to the public. Get your ego fully entwined with narcissism and then you can effecttively and simultaneously play dumb and innocent. …
Works for Wall Street bosses, too.
Would if they were ever seriously investigated and interviewed. As it is, other than a warmish seat that Elizabeth Warren has set out for a few of them, they hold their own courts at the poshest places and control the guest list (only political sycophants make the cut.)
Yes.
yes, and interesting that it’s a couple days before she meets w FBI
The timeline on this has been distorted. The “tarmac” meeting was on Monday (6/27), Chris Sign only reported it on Wednesday 6/29 (when was Lynch first questioned and confirmed the meeting?), made it to general news on Thursday, and Friday 7/1 was when Lynch said she would accept the FBI recommendation.
The FBI interview with HRC has been on someone’s calendar for months. It has long been claimed that it’s routine and the last item on the FBI’s list before closing the investigation. Difficult to speculate that Lynch could in any way have influence the time and place of the interview or anything else about it. When did the FBI schedule the interview and when was HRC’s attorney informed? Several weeks at a minimum. Or perhaps, she and her attorney demanded that the FBI get it done and over with today.
Was BC jes having fun, jerking chains?
He’s often a jerk, but don’t know that he’s ever not calculating. He’s been scheming getting back the WH for sixteen years now and he’s not about to let anything get in his way. Of course, hiding HRC’s communications while she was SOS was part of the scheming to avoid anything possibly derailing their quest.
no I think B ambushed her b/c of the upcoming meeting
Seems to me that the media presents pseudo scandals. Benghazi was a waste of time, and considering that the Republicans kept cutting the embassy security budgets in the years coming up to it and if there were actually any real fight about it, Clinton and her defenders would have brought it up.
But that wasn’t the real scandal in Libya. It was the the actual rationale for taking out Ghadafy. What geopolitical goals was sought? While the media reported that NATO was united in attacking Ghadafy’s forces to “make it a fair fight” or some similar falderol, it was essentially the US leading the way. Who supplied the weapons for the rebels? Where did the rebels come from? Who backed them?
For the last forty years the US, through the House of Saud, has been using jihadi fascism to destabilize the Arab world. It is actually the strategy that the Germans used in both world wars. Reading an interesting book now about how Salafism dovetails so nicely with fascism.
But, unlike the 80s when investigative reporters used to try to follow arms sales, the quid pro quos going on, how, for example, the planes that brought weapons to the contras brought cocaine out of Latin America, we don’t get that anymore. The US sells arms to Saudi Arabia, the House distributes them to “rebels” and the next thing you know ISIS has massive machine guns mounted on the back of Toyota trucks. But no one connects the dots anymore.
But no one has to answer if no one asks the questions.
True. The GOP can’t highlight authentic scandals related to the Clintons because they agree with that stuff. So, we have to suffer through all the pseudo scandals that they concoct and bark about over and over again, as if with enough repetition a real scandal will surface.
Bob in Portland, Has anyone figured out where the white Toyota pickup trucks came from?
I’m curious, to what do you refer?
The ones shipped out of Houston, supposedly?
Elites have presumptions of certain things. One of them is that tarmac meetings will not attract the press corps unless invited. Another is that the media and the public understand how things are done behind the scenes and usually it’s not a big deal.
With the Clintons, this presumption was shattered early and often during the 1990s. Wilbur Mills got away with it as long as it was discreet. Clinton was the target of an internal spy. What changed? Feminism took root, and Republicans became desperate. What better way to lower the boom on feminist Hillary than lower the boom on her cheating husband. The Village was not impressed with the climbers from Arkansas (little Jed Clampett family there). The Republican Wurlitzer was just tuning up and ready to institutionalize itself. David Brock was an ambitious Republican. Lucianne Goldberg wanted a juicy book for Regnery. And Republicans were still smarting over Nixon’s forced resignation and the Iran-Contra investigation, and wanting revenge.
So political culture’s toleration of elite behavior changed — unless you are a Republican. That rule apparently still applies.
It is the myth of optics. And the double standard in the media for Democrats and Republicans.
Oh, yes, there’s the left’s institutional anger at (1) being amputated from American politics by excommunication from either big tent party; (2) the Democratic Leadership Council’s deliberate undermining of New Deal principles; (3) Anger at Bill Clinton getting the results they predicted from his most triangulated policies because their voices were never allowed into the debate in a way that the public could consider; (4) the almost deliberate throwing away of what power liberals and the Democratic Party had rebuilt after Reagan. Possibly some other reasons–some good, some bad, some just ugly, others highly principled. For them, it’s neoliberalism plus optics plus the constant demand that the left bail out their failures or monster du jour will win. They are tired of being so cynically played.
Getting managers in the US government to obey computer and email rules has been a struggle since they started using the devices. I understand why twenty years of personalized and vicious hammering by the media and Republican nitpicking charges and the suddenly changed rules on discretion by the media have disoriented the Clintons. I understand why having a personal server for personal communications, a party server for party communications, and an official server for official communications makes functional sense. The security issue becomes problematic when you accidentally or intentionally commingle communications that should be separated into those servers. And computer-averse people can easily commingle those communications by forgetting which server they are currently on. Of course the IT folks would like for the boss to be only on their server; that’s the only one they are paid to support. Of course, the fact that the GOP got away with commingling communications of the RNC party server during the Bush administration gave the Clintons the illusion that what they were doing was proper. And of course, it still is OK if you are a Republican, which the Republicans still want grant Hillary Clinton as being although the left is as sure of it as they are that Lucy Parsons is buried in the Waldheim Cemetery, Chicago.
It is fascinating that this story is being carried forward by the more extreme right-wing news sources. And only buttressed by Lynch’s comments at Aspen.
When can we call this one over and actually engage the Clintons on policy instead of Republican diversions?
Have people actually vetted candidates like Jill Stein and Gary Johnson with the same thoroughness that 20 years of Republican attacks and opposition research and purely constructed mythology have tested the Clintons? Because, if elected their backgrounds will be mined for optics. Bernie has experienced a little of this trial by fire. Or is it the dunking stool to test for witchcraft.
Did Lynch lie about the meeting taking place just to dismiss it and get the reporter off hounding her? It is as much a possibility as a quid pro quo taking place. However there are good reasons for not replacing Lynch early if the Democrats do not recapture the Senate with a sufficient majority. Republicans likely realize this too and want a way to cover an denial of advise and consent to an incumbent cabinet official.
Something is very sketchy about how this PHX tarmac story appeared and was given life.