Lessons for Trump from the Clinton Scandals

U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- Hillary Clinton isn’t the only politician who should heed our leadership on transparency and accountability. Donald Trump should also err on the side of disclosure. In that regard, Micah Morrison, our chief investigative reporter, has put that idea to paper in The Wall Street Journal. Micah covered the Clinton scandals for the Journal editorial page from 1994 to 2002 and is co-editor of the six-volume series, “Whitewater: A Journal Briefing.”

Here are excerpts from his article.

A generation ago, as the 1992 presidential campaign heated up, The Wall Street Journal asked: “Who Is Bill Clinton?” The country “will get to know, or try to get to know, Bill Clinton and Hillary,” the Journal noted. “The Gennifer Flowers tank has already rumbled by. But where’s the rest of them?”

Not far behind, as it turned out. Eight years of scandal and suspicion followed: Whitewater, Travelgate, the firing of all U.S. attorneys, the death of a White House deputy counsel and the jailing of a Justice Department associate attorney general, vanishing documents, congressional hearings, independent counsels, lurid allegations from Arkansas, 1996 campaign-finance misdeeds, Paula Jones, Monica, impeachment, the Marc Rich pardon.

Today, with his campaign staggering but the presidency perhaps still within his grasp, Donald Trump should consider the central lesson of the Clinton years: Scandal compounded by secrecy blots out the political sun. Opposition to the Clintons quickly coalesced as the media, members of Congress and outside groups seized the moment.

…

Mr. Trump promises it won’t be business as usual if he is elected president. But the same scandal-industrial complex that hemmed in his predecessors will quickly engulf him unless he makes some bold moves.

The most transformative solution would be to embrace radical transparency. Mr. Trump should immediately release his tax returns. He should direct the FBI and CIA to release any files it has on him. He should instruct his lawyers to stop acting like a defense team and embrace freedom-of-information practices. And he should appoint a transparency czar to ensure that his campaign and a future Trump administration will operate in an open and accountable manner. That would be a real revolution in Washington.

A truly transparent, accountable administration-in-waiting would not be just good policy, it would also be good politics. A massive document dump late in the campaign would electrify the media and shift the onus to Mrs. Clinton. The contrast with the secretiveness of the Clinton campaign and the lack of transparency in the Obama administration would be stark.

Judicial Watch won’t tell you (and can’t tell you) who to vote for, but we can tell politicians of both parties that they should respect the American people and end the practice of the modified limited hang out of potentially harmful information. Trust in politics is a two-way street. If they want the trust of Americans, they should first trust voters to evaluate fairly key background information.

About Judicial Watch

Judicial Watch, Inc., a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation, promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law. Through its educational endeavors, Judicial Watch advocates high standards of ethics and morality in our nation’s public life and seeks to ensure that political and judicial officials do not abuse the powers entrusted to them by the American people. Judicial Watch fulfills its educational mission through litigation, investigations, and public outreach.

For more information, visit: www.JudicialWatch.org.

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