Media Influencing The Democrat Party Nomination

By: Roger Aronoff | Accuracy in Media

As the election rolls on it is becoming clear that the current favorites to win the two major party nominations are Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. But favorites don’t always win. There are still many Republicans and conservatives determined to undermine Trump’s candidacy at a brokered, or open, or contested convention. Call it what you will. Such a move could lead to civil war in the GOP. And Hillary’s path may be even less certain than it appears.

Both candidates—Hillary and Trump—have considerable clouds hanging over them. In this column, I will look at the situation with the Democrats.

Much has been made of the notion that if Trump gets the Republican nomination, many Republicans will stay home or vote for the Democrat. But there hasn’t been nearly the same amount of speculation about what the Democrats will do if Hillary gets the nod.

The Huffington Post quotes one potential voter, Patt Coltem, as saying, “I would vote for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in a heartbeat….She’s just too shady. She’s a pathological liar.” And that is coming from a Sanders supporter, in an article entitled, “Don’t Assume Bernie Sanders Supporters Will Back Hillary Clinton if She is the Nominee.”

“I will never support Hillary Clinton,” Adam Burch also told The Huffington Post. “I identify as a socialist. She stands for everything that I’m against. It’s Bernie [Sanders] or nothing.”

The New York Times published an article this week arguing that Senator Sanders (I-VT) still could win the Democratic nomination outright: “Mr. Sanders should fare better over the second half of the primary season, after black voters gave Hillary Clinton such a big advantage in the first half,” writes Nate Cohn. In addition, Sanders has shown a willingness to attempt to swing superdelegates his way, even if they have already announced their intention to support Mrs. Clinton. This has some on the left shouting “foul,” suggesting Bernie isn’t being truly democratic if he is willing to ignore the will of the Democrat voters as expressed through primaries and caucuses, as opposed to by party insiders.

The Times was criticized by its own outgoing public editor, Margaret Sullivan, for doing some PR for Hillary, when they changed the headline and added two paragraphs to an already published article. The implication of the article turned dramatically from being favorable to Sanders to being quite unfavorable. It’s yet another example of the agenda-driven media, rather than one adhering to its responsibility to be honest, neutral journalists. Sullivan cited the fact that Robert Reich, who was the secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton, accused the Times of “caving in to Hillary Clinton interests.”

Accuracy in Media has repeatedly exposed Mrs. Clinton’s lies about Benghazi, sending classified information through her server, and her Clinton Foundation conflicts of interest.

The mainstream media’s double standard is transparently favoring the Democratic candidates. Trump, for example, has been repeatedly called upon to repudiate the endorsement he received from white supremacist David Duke, which he has done numerous times. Yet Sanders has not been asked to repudiate his endorsement from the radical-left MoveOn.org, which has been foremost among the groups attempting to disrupt Trump’s rallies, while fundraising off of their efforts. Nor has Hillary been asked to repudiate her endorsement from the head of the Ku Klux Klan.

While the mainstream media are content to spread unsubstantiated claims that Trump is causing the violence at his rallies, they refuse to address more concrete evidence of Mrs. Clinton’s malfeasance.

The Washington Times reported on March 1 that “The State Department may wait until after the November election to finish its review of classified information former Secretary Hillary Clinton sent on her secret email account…”  State spokesman John Kirby said that the Obama administration did not want to run the review according to a “political calendar.”

Instead, the State Department hopes to finish its inquiry once the information it seeks has become largely politically irrelevant. Mrs. Clinton and her supporters claim that none of the information was marked classified at the time that she sent or received the information via email.

As we have repeatedly reported, some of the classified information sent through Mrs. Clinton’s server was born classified and needed no special markings. As secretary of state Mrs. Clinton could not have failed to recognize this information’s sensitive nature. And if she did fail to recognize it, that is considered gross negligence, and is still a crime.

The investigations into Mrs. Clinton’s misconduct continue to be slow-rolled. The House Select Committee on Benghazi report is seen as partisan by many, and will be perceived that way even more if Congress waits until the general election. We learned this past week that former CIA director David Petraeus was interviewed a second time by the committee, and that National Security Advisor Susan Rice and Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes agreed to testify to the committee only after a direct meeting between Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), the chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, and the White House.

And what about James Comey, the FBI Director? If the Justice Department refuses to heed a referral from the FBI, will Comey go public with his complaints, resign, or will there be a revolt within the FBI? Judge Andrew Napolitano said last week on Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baier that Hillary’s biggest concern is the Department of Justice. He said that he believes “that the FBI is nearing a conclusion on its accumulation of evidence.

It has the evidence. It’s corroborating and re-corroborating the evidence, and I believe that it will recommend to its superiors in the Justice Department that the evidence be presented to a grand jury. What happens there, nobody knows. But if the evidence is not presented to a grand jury I think you’ll see that evidence along with FBI commentary on it all over the place, and that will be devastating to Mrs. Clinton.” Napolitano added that he thinks people would resign if their work “is tossed into the trash can because the President wants her to succeed him.”

Bret Baier then turned to Mara Liasson of National Public Radio, who said that if Napolitano is correct, she can’t figure out which would be worse for Mrs. Clinton—to have a grand jury and an indictment, or to have information leaked because the DOJ chose not to indict.

President Obama weighed in again on the side of no indictment for Hillary, though he has claimed through his spokesman that he is not in the loop on the FBI investigations. Obama said to a group of donors in Texas that they are nearing the time that “the [Democrat] party must soon come together to back [Mrs. Clinton].” If he thought an indictment was coming, he probably wouldn’t have said that.

Will the FBI’s two investigations into Mrs. Clinton’s email server and conflicts of interest continue, as the State Department inquiry will, until after the November election? As we have previously stated, the FBI investigation will be seen as political no matter what the outcome is, and much rides on what the FBI director chooses to do. Delaying these investigations any further merely serves to prevent voters from making informed decisions.

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