Would the USA have been better off under Hillary Clinton?

Thanks for coming to the party Chawbacon.

By elect-ably flaws, do you mean what people believed or what was true about her past...
I agree that all 6 of your points were believed by enough of the electorate that many people refrained from voting.
I just want to acknowledge though that there was much false equivalency drawn between the sins outline above and those of Trump.

1. It seems that the despite Jame's Comey's assessment of the matter was that she had been "Extremely Careless" with regards to her email server, he didn't recommend charges. I have the impression that Comey and the FBI do favour Republicans in general, and so I find it likely that they would have charged her if they had a case. It appears that she made an earnest effort to comply with the law, and was following the practices of her predecessor, Colin Powell. As an aside, it appears the law she violated, 18 U.S. Code § 1924, took affect in 2012, so kind of a new thing. She should have known better.

2. "Ending one of the longest, costliest and most bitterly partisan congressional investigations in history, the House Select Committee on Benghazi issued its final report on Tuesday, finding no new evidence of culpability or wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton in the 2012 attacks in Libya that left four Americans dead"
"The administration did make two mistakes. First, the State Department failed to provide sufficient security at Benghazi, which an internal review blamed on "systemic failures" at the department's "senior levels." Second, Obama administration officials initially mischaracterized how the attack began (more on this below), but investigations found they were honestly relaying the CIA's assessments, not deliberately lying, as Republicans charged." https://www.vox.com/2015/10/12/9489389/benghazi-explained

3. "You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables.". I can't say I disagree with her, but I did do a face palm when she said it.
compared to "You can grab em by the *****" this is nothing IMO

4. The Uranium One : No evidence of wrongdoing has been found after four years of allegations.

5. We all know that Trump Lies and exaggerates and mis-characterizes.... Which failed democrat policies are we referring to?

6. Interesting. As a Canadian, I didn't see any of the campaign ads. I haven't heard anyone else ever suggesting that she didn't speak of prosperity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton_2016_presidential_campaign#Platform
"Clinton focused her candidacy on several themes, including raising middle class incomes, expanding women's rights, instituting campaign finance reform, and improving the Affordable Care Act."

In her book, she blamed James Comey's announcement of a probe into her email weeks before the election as a major factor for her loss.

Glad to join in the conversation! A lot of information to respond to there, so I will stick to the numbers and try my best to convey my views on the subject.
However, let me point out that your question was about Hillary and not Trump. Not trying to be adversarial here, just explaining why I did not focus on Trump. Personally, there is a lot to NOT like about Trump; however, upon looking at the economy at the time and the choice between the two candidates, Trump was, in my opinion, the best option available.

1. Where do I start with this? First understand that James Comey and the upper echelon on the Obama FBI were undeniably Clinton supporters and took direct action to cover up for Hillary on this issue and others. Additionally, this was a cover up that went all the way to President Obama. So I will grab some highlights from the 2018-02-07 Interim Report_The Clinton Email Scandal and the FBI's Investigation of It. I would encourage you to read this report for yourself though. https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2018-02-07 Interim Report_The Clinton Email Scandal and the FBI's Investigation of It.pdf

• Secretary Clinton allowed a private server to be set up in her home, in violation of State Department policy and federal IT standards, according to the State Department Office of Inspector General.
  
• Director Comey repeatedly referred to her behavior as "grossly negligent"-the legal standard under § 793(f)-in his original drafts of his public statement.37 That phrase was subsequently edited to "extremely careless"-a legal distinction without a practical difference.
  
• According to Secretary Clinton, her attorneys ultimately deleted over 30,000 emails that she deemed to be unrelated to her official duties.
  
• The FBI found that 110 emails in 52 separate email chains contained classified information at the time the emails were sent or received- including eight chains that contained Top Secret information, 36 chains that contained Secret information, and eight chains that contained Confidential information.41 Another 2,000 emails were later determined to contain classified information.
  
• Director Comey's original statement assessed that "it is reasonably likely that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's private email account."46 "Reasonably likely" was downgraded to "possible" in the final statement.
  
• In early May 2016, Director Comey emailed his draft statement clearing Secretary Clinton of any wrongdoing to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, FBI General Counsel James Baker, and FBI Chief of Staff James Rybicki. This draft came a full two months before the FBI completed over a dozen interviews, including immunized testimony from Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson and testimony from Secretary Clinton.
  
• On June 10, 2016, the FBI and Justice Department agreed to immunize key figures in the investigation, including Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson.54 These agreements included side deals that required the FBI to destroy evidence on computer devices turned over to the FBI.
  
• On July 2, 2016, the FBI and Justice Department allowed other fact witnesses to the investigation, including Mills and Samuelson, to be present during the interview of Secretary Clinton. The FBI and Justice Department also allowed attorneys to represent multiple individuals involved in the investigation
  
• FBI Director Comey held a press conference and read the statement he first began writing in May and announced Secretary Clinton's exoneration. The final statement, as detailed above, had been significantly edited to downplay the severity of Secretary Clinton's actions.

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Chawbacon said:

A lot of information to respond to there, so I will stick to the numbers and try my best to convey my views on the subject.
However, let me point out that your question was about Hillary and not Trump. Not trying to be adversarial here, just explaining why I did not focus on Trump. Personally, there is a lot to NOT like about Trump; however, upon looking at the economy at the time and the choice between the two candidates, Trump was, in my opinion, the best option available.

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Agreed, I would like to limit the scope here so that we can both keep our answers down to a more manageable size. So I will just address Email.

1. Where do I start with this? First understand that James Comey and the upper echelon on the Obama FBI were undeniably Clinton supporters and took direct action to cover up for Hillary on this issue and others. Additionally, this was a cover up that went all the way to President Obama. So I will grab some highlights from the 2018-02-07 Interim Report_The Clinton Email Scandal and the FBI's Investigation of It. I would encourage you to read this report for yourself though. https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2018-02-07 Interim Report_The Clinton Email Scandal and the FBI's Investigation of It.pdf

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FBI supported Clinton?
I from a google search "FBI bias" I found this article:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/fbi-trump-comey/597523/
"An FBI agent told The Guardian that Clinton is "the antichrist personified to a large swath of FBI personnel," and that "the reason why they're leaking is they're pro-Trump."
The rest of it is worth a read, but I thought I would post a quote that was on point.

I had a look through the interim report, and I only got as far as the Title Page where I found that it was released in February of 2018, and prepared by a majority Republican Committee headed by Ron Johnson (R, WI). I am sure you can agree with me that report risks being a partisan document.

And those are just some highlights. To dumb this down a little from all the technical speech.

• Private e-mail server with classified informaiton - Illegal
• Deliberately changing report language to avoid a potential indictment - What the heck?
• Deleting 30,000 subpoena e-mails - Obstruction of Justice
• Those email were hacked. - Should we be surprised?
• Writing the exoneration for Hillary two months before the Investigation started - Are you kidding me?
• Allowing fact witnesses to be interviewed together - Good Grief!
• Making a deal that allowed the FBI to review devices, without keeping copies, and under the condition that the devices were subsequently destroyed - So no official records are now available to be used for indictments.

I tend to look at things through more liberal coloured (See the extra U there? Eh?) glasses, but I can't help but be more forgiving of Clinton scandals than you.
The interim report didn't tell me any key information that I would like to know on this.
I know that the buck stops with the head of the state department, but I blame state's IT department for not setting her up with the correct state department email when she assumed her position. Do you know of any resource that describes the email server setup for both her and the state department. I recall reading somewhere that her's was a Microsoft Exchange server. Would a state department system be any more secure?
Surely someone in legal must have noticed she was using her own domain and should have warned her that it was unlawful to do so.

The relevant section in the report reads:
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"Section 793(f) prohibits the mishandling of classified material through one's gross negligence. This subsection does not require a specific intent to harm national security, and even without intent, it is considered a serious crime. Other American citizens have been charged under this statute for less serious actions.

The relevant portion of Section 793(f) reads:
Whoever . . . having lawful possession or control of any document . . . relating to national defense, through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody . . . or having knowledge that same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody . . . and fails to make prompt report of such loss . . . Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both."
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So she would have to be grossly negligent in allowing access to her email... something like leaving her password out on a conference room table while at a foreign summit.
or
She would have to know that she had been hacked and elect to do nothing.

I hope we can agree that there was no intent on Hillary part. It seems we depart on whether we can call her actions "gross negligence" but you would have to show that AND show that someone gained access to classified documents in her email.

Yes he changed the wording, softening the charge. maybe that was a cover-up, or maybe that was just an edit - suggesting that on further reflection "gross negligence" is too strong a charge under the circumstances. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, and I think that "Gross Negligence" is too strong, so I will conclude the latter.

What was the timeline of the email deletions? After she had received the subpoena? If that were the case then I would agree it would be obstruction of justice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton_email_controversy#Deletion_of_emails
Here we see an account showing that work related emails were transferred to the state department systems, and the emails that were deleted were done so by a tech under the instruction of Cheryl Mills.

So the allegation is that top secret emails were deleted while under subpoena, when the reality was that they were retained elsewhere and deleted off the server where they shouldn't have been in the first place.

So, Republican investigators want it both ways - she shouldn't have emails on her own server because she could get hacked and she shouldn't take the emails off the server because that destroys evidence and is OOJ. Talk about a no win for Hillary.

She should have taken the advice of her IT guy and Lawyer. Oh wait. Do we know if they even gave her that advice? Hmm , not in the report. Oh well, throw her in jail for not being an expert on email security and the minutia of Section 793(f) while attempting to negotiate peace in the middle east.

The Benghazi thing seems to come down to Monday morning quarterbacking. Sure things should have and could have been done better, but no criminality was found.

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SeanLaurence said:

FBI supported Clinton?
I from a google search "FBI bias" I found this article:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/fbi-trump-comey/597523/
"An FBI agent told The Guardian that Clinton is "the antichrist personified to a large swath of FBI personnel," and that "the reason why they're leaking is they're pro-Trump."
The rest of it is worth a read, but I thought I would post a quote that was on point.

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For the record, I disagree with the assumptions made in the reference you posted categorically. Yes, it is probable that many of the rank and file agents were Pro-Trump, or Pro-Clinton, depending on their personal political leanings. I observed that "James Comey and the upper echelon of the Obama FBI were undeniably Clinton supporters." For The Guardian to find ONE FBI Agent (anonymous of course) that called Hillary the anti-Christ and then to infer that the entire FBI was working from a Pro-Trump bias is presumptive and negligent reporting at best.

I read through the article that you referenced and find it to be a defensive effort where the conclusions reached are mostly ethereal when compared to facts. I understand that you did not read beyond the Title Page of the report that I posted; because, of probably partisanship. My advise is that in order to be objective you must read information from both points of view. Just because a source is partisan/biased, that does not mean that the information is not correct; but, we must sift through the incendiary language from different viewpoints to determine what most likely occurred.

Well, I did read a good part of the interim report that you referenced.
I skimmed over the part discussing the exchanges between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok because I had heard already from less partisan sources that they were also critical of Hillary Clinton, but that somehow didn't make it into the report

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Strzok
"In their messages, Strzok and Page also advocated creating a Special Counsel to investigate the Hillary Clinton email controversy, and discussed suggesting former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald be considered for such a probe"

Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok are both suing the Justice Department alleging improper political retaliation. We will see how that goes.
I admit. I am not privy into the mindset of any FBI agent, let alone all of them, however, I do understand that law enforcement personnel in general do favour conservative politics.
Hillary blames Comey's revelation of the re-opening email investigation just prior to the election (which was against FBI policy to do) as the biggest factor in her loss.
Neither the FBI or Comey himself leaked anything about the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign's relationship with Russia prior to the election.
To me that seems obvious favouritism towards Republicans. What evidence do you have to the contrary?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...probe-of-alleged-fbi-bias-ends-with-a-whimper

SeanLaurence said:

Well, I did read a good part of the interim report that you referenced.
I skimmed over the part discussing the exchanges between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok because I had heard already from less partisan sources that they were also critical of Hillary Clinton, but that somehow didn't make it into the report

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Strzok
"In their messages, Strzok and Page also advocated creating a Special Counsel to investigate the Hillary Clinton email controversy, and discussed suggesting former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald be considered for such a probe"

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Fair enough. However, when you look at the actual source article there is also this little tidbit:
https://www.politico.com/story/2018...rick-fitzgerald-fbi-special-prosecutor-370489

While it appears from the messages that the idea of a special prosecutor was discussed at high-level FBI meetings, it is unclear whether the thought of naming Fitzgerald to that job was as widely discussed.

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Additionally if you read further into that article to the actual text messages being referenced, it seems like a stretch that they were truly considering Fitzgerald as a Special Prosecutor looking into the Hillary e-mail concerns. Sounds more like wanting Fitzgerald to investigate Trump, in my personal opinion.

"Thought of the perfect person [FBI Director James Comey] can bounce this off of?" Strzok wrote in a March 18, 2016 text to Page. "Pat....You got to give me credit if we go with him....And delay briefing him on until I can get back and do it, Late next week or later."
"We talked about him last night, not for this, but how great he is," Page replied.
"I could work with him again....And damn we'd get sh*t DONE," Strzok wrote.

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SeanLaurence said:

I am not privy into the mindset of any FBI agent, let alone all of them, however, I do understand that law enforcement personnel in general do favour conservative politics.

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OK. I can concede this one. I would expect for most law enforcement personnel to be conservative due to the whole law-and-order mindset.

SeanLaurence said:

Hillary blames Comey's revelation of the re-opening email investigation just prior to the election (which was against FBI policy to do) as the biggest factor in her loss.

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I think that the better question is who, or what, hasn't Hillary blamed here loss on? Yeah that's a little tongue in cheek; but, you get the idea.

SeanLaurence said:

Neither the FBI or Comey himself leaked anything about the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign's relationship with Russia prior to the election.
To me that seems obvious favouritism towards Republicans. What evidence do you have to the contrary?

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Well... Let's see what Comey had to say himself: (In reference to the meeting between Trump and Comey on the subject of the initial Steel Dossier briefing); Comey stated the following during his Senate Intelligence Committee hearing?

JAMES COMEY, FORMER DIRECTOR, FBI: My judgment was I needed to get that out into the public square and so I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. I didn't do it myself for a variety of reasons but I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.

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Leaking details of the meeting helped fuel the whole Russia Collusion Echo chamber that ended up being nothing more than a huge impeachment hoax.

SeanLaurence said:

"I would like you to do us a favor though" - President Trump to the Ukrainian PM after holding up military aid for over a week, and immediately after the PM thanked him for the aid.

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Well... This description is a bit inaccurate. Specifically the Ukrainian PM said:

"We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next
steps specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from
the United States for defense purposes."

So there was neither a "I need to buy more Javelin Missiles now" nor a "If you don't do ABC then you will receive no aid from the U.S."; however, that was a tactic employed by the Obama White-house when dealing with Ukraine. This was clearly a declaration of intent to purchase more Javelin Missiles in the future.

Additionally, we need to consider context of the discussion, just prior to the Ukrainian PM declaration of intent to purchase additional Javelin Missiles, President Trump and the Prime Minister of Ukraine were discussing how each of them were elected to "Drain the swamp" of their respective country. AND the favor requested by President Trump immediately after that statement was concerning Ukrainian interference into the 2016 election. Imagine that, a President looking into potential foreign collusion that involved the prior election. Of course, if that investigation bore fruit, it would definitely be politically advantageous to the sitting President.

As for Biden... Whenever these type of allegations arise, regardless of political party, I step back and ask myself a few questions... What if this were an everyday Joe (worker, banker, major company owner, etc...), or a political figure that sides with the opposition party, that has bragged about successfully conducting potential criminal activity in public (on video tape) while on foreign soil? Would it be improper for any President to ask another foreign leader to look into the matter? If the President should decide to not look into the allegation, if found out by the opposing party, would there be accusations of criminal favoritism and dereliction of duty? And finally... Should a politician be immune to criminal investigations (foreign or domestic) simply because they are running for office?

When I look at this from a wide view, the Democrat leadership and media descriptions of Trump executing a "shakedown" of the Ukrainian PM is simple conjecture at best.

SeanLaurence said:

"Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press." Trump - in a televised rally on July 27 2017 . And the Russians stepped up their attacks on Democratic emails that very day.

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First, I have to ask that you watch the video of this event. When viewed, the statement was obviously meant as sarcastic humor, however, the media took it out-of-context to further denigrate Trump at every turn.

What I really like about this statement though, is that the media had/has been claiming daily (for over three years now) that Trump is incompetent, insane, stupid, moronic, irresponsible, maniac, unstable, cannot be trusted with nuclear launch codes... just add an insulting adjective, noun, or phrase of your choice.

BUT, they also are indirectly admitting that Trump was smart enough use a public speaking event to trigger a planned Russian response, that has now been investigated four times by government agencies with zero proof to support the allegations.

SeanLaurence said:

I find it incredible that you should call the Russian collusion thing a hoax on the day after the house speaker announced formal impeachment hearings. It makes me wonder what echo chamber you are in?

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Well... The subjects of Trump-Russia Collusion, Nancy Pelozi's Impeachment Announcement, and Constitution Day (referenced by Pelozi on what I am calling Impeachment Inquiry Day) are mutually exclusive events/issues with no correlated relationships to each other; but, OK. Now let me run with that thought process also... Is it not more incredible, thatNancy Pelozi with the support of Democratic Leadership decided to announce impeachment proceedings on a sitting President without having reviewed ANY material related to the so called impeachable offense? Plus, Pelozi only announced an intent to start a formal impeachment inquiry; she has yet to conduct a successful vote on starting an impeachment proceeding (this is the real impeachment process). All the Democrat leadership really did, was to say that they are going to stop talking about impeachment and that they are now going to start inquiring about impeachment.

As for the echo chamber statement... I understand that many individuals are a bit hot-under-the-collar when it comes to anything Trump; however, I would recommend leaving the rhetoric of personal attacks up to Johnny. This should not be taken as insult Johnny, you really do have an impressive knack for this type of argumentative tactic.

Trump has a talent for making statements that are almost incriminating. The "Russia if are you listening" ask was and still is outrageous, and it appears that the Russian's did react. Now is it your position that it was perfectly OK for him to have said that? Even in jest?

You seem to be defending Trump here - I thought you weren't a fan? As an aside, can I ask who your favored republican candidate was for the 2016 election? (please don't say Santorum or Cruz)

I have not heard that Obama used that same tactic. Do you have a reference to back that up? Commentators that I am listening to state that Trump's call has no precedent.

As far as suggesting that you live in an echo chamber - I recalled that you used the same phrasing in last night's response, but looking back, I noticed it wasn't directly at me. It seemed to me that you were implying it though.

SeanLaurence said:

Trump has a talent for making statements that are almost incriminating. The "Russia if are you listening" ask was and still is outrageous, and it appears that the Russian's did react. Now is it your position that it was perfectly OK for him to have said that? Even in jest?

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Yes. That is exactly my position. I can appreciate humor, especially sarcastic humor, by both political parties. Bill Clinton was pretty good at the sarcastic humor also.

SeanLaurence said:

You seem to be defending Trump here - I thought you weren't a fan? As an aside, can I ask who your favored republican candidate was for the 2016 election? (please don't say Santorum or Cruz)

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Correct, I am not a Trump fanatic; however, I am also not a Trump hater. I do agree with the majority of his policies/positions though. As for the 2016 primaries, I was leaning towards Mike Huckabee.

SeanLaurence said:

I have not heard that Obama used that same tactic. Do you have a reference to back that up? Commentators that I am listening to state that Trump's call has no precedent.

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Well, how about I just let you watch the video. Oh. my apologies for the BS opinion slides at the start of the video, not of my making.
youtube.com/watch?v=UXA--dj2-CY

SeanLaurence said:

As far as suggesting that you live in an echo chamber - I recalled that you used the same phrasing in last night's response, but looking back, I noticed it wasn't directly at me. It seemed to me that you were implying it though.

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No worries! I truly was griping about the biased and circular, pile-on style reporting that is called news in this day and age. Truly though, I take efforts to not make personal insults against posters on the forum, as I do not feel that personal insults are appropriate when discussing viewpoints (one of my beefs with Trump). Admittedly, I will poke fun on occasions; however, I will try to make that abundantly clear.

Sarah's dad, Hmmm.
I am wondering now if you a Baptist or some other kind of evangelical, but that is not my business.

If that were the case, then it would appear that you and I are farther apart on some contentious issues than I first imagined.
I think the promise to overturn Roe V Wade is what got Donald elected. I also think that the decision to have an abortion is a difficult one and few women would make it lightly. The best way to reduce the number of abortions is to educate and to make birth control readily available.

Then there is the issue of immigration. I don't like the effort that it takes to communicate with someone who does not speak English, But I do recognize the demographic problems surround low birth rates in America and Canada, and that immigration is needed to fill the void left by an aging, retiring, baby boomers.

I also recognize the utility of firearms, especially in rural settings. But given their deadly nature, there needs to be a much greater responsibility put on gun owners to store and use firearms safely. It doesn't seem that the NRA is support of of that position. Rather, they seem to have the interest of manufacturers at heart who have over-saturated the market at this point.

SeanLaurence said:

" There's no public evidence that any of the previously closed investigations implicated Hunter Biden in any wrongdoing."
The strong-arming was about getting rid of a corrupt prosecuter, and didn't originate from Joe. Frankly, I couldn't stay focused on it all.

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Fair enough! However, I have heard that there are hundreds of documents collected by The Hill that are indicating just the opposite. Admittedly though, The Hill leans very hard to the right, so I will have to wait for that information to be vetted.

Otherwise, the claim of corruption was that the prosecutor was refusing to investigate the Ukraine government. So I have to ponder... What good would come from forcing Ukraine to fire a prosecutor (by withholding Billions of dollars in Aid) that allegedly was refusing to investigate the Ukrainian party in power, when that same Ukrainian party would simply appoint another prosecutor that would continue to not investigate the party in power? Smells a bit fishy to me; but, we will have to wait for more information on that front.

SeanLaurence said:

The big difference is that Trump has been accused of self dealing, where Biden was acting to further US foreign policy (support Ukrane by helping to root out corruption)

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To me this what Trump did vs. what Biden did is dealing more with semantics than anything else. Both individuals could have been seeking a quid-pro-quo and both individuals could have been legitimately working in the best interest of the country. Since there is not enough information for impeachment, or prosecution, available at this time, I am giving both individuals the benefit of a doubt until we learn more about the situation.