Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Let's be clear here folks...

When you are the Secretary of State with the clout and authority to grant or not grant certain requests. When your calendar is so full that you have to reject requests from people to meet with you, or tell people you do not have the time or resources to consider a particular proposal.

The quid pro quo from the Clinton side... is nothing more than taking the meeting and considering a proposal.
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I happen to work on the same floor as a fairly large group of presales people. There are literally dozens of people who make call after call after call, trying to do nothing more than set up a meeting or gather a lead for one of our actual salesperson to sit down with a prospective client and give a presentation.

These presales people get paid by the lead or by the appointment. It's not their job to sell the product and they get paid for their lead or appointment regardless of the ultimate outcome. Every large company selling a product has a similar group of presales people who gather leads and attempt to set up meetings.

Bottom line. You would have a hard time telling a potential sales person that there is no value in a meeting with a potential customer. To actually meet with a person who has the clout to actually say yes or no, would be considered the most valuable of any meeting.

If a meeting with the Secretary of State was all that was garnered for these donations, that is more than enough to show quid pro quo. Is it worse for the examples where she did actually say yes to whatever was being proposed? Possibly. But I would offer that the main thing being sold here is access to the person holding one of the most influential and important positions in the world. To argue there is no value in that meeting, defies logic.


15 comments:

KD, Clinton vs Clinton said...

OMG are you kidding the Clinton Foundation and The Clinton Hillary are NOT , the Same person, really.

This is the latest spin on the Clinton Foundation , the Clinton Hillary and the Clinton Bill, or the Clinton Chealsea.

SO now they want us to look at the meaning of "Clinton".


Hillary was asked about the newly discovered 14,900 emails, Hillary , giggled and actually said " "So we’ve already released, I don’t know, 30,000-plus, so what’s a few more?"

We know, "What difference does it make" four murdered in a terrorist attack , those people were directly trusting in her, she failed them.

Coldheartedtruth Teller said...

From everything I've read, outside right wing world, this isn't a big deal. But a smart move would be to find a way to keep it open for its outstanding charity work, but both need to step out.

By the way, the polls are moving back into Hillary's direction. Trump's attempt to modify his stance on immigration, isn't going well with his base.

C.H. Truth said...

By the way, the polls are moving back into Hillary's direction.

RCP Poll average - 5.4 (6.0 a week ago)
4-Way race Average - 4.0 (6.2 a week ago)

Huffington Post 5.3 (6.0 a week ago)


This includes the new YouGov poll (released today) where Hillary's lead dropped from six to four.

I'd maintain that the polls have been consistently within five or six points now for almost three weeks - with about half of those being under three points. Once those double digit Maris and Monmouth polls fall off the average, it will close even further on my spreadsheet.

And no, neither RCP or Huffington Post will be reporting the Reuter's releases of their Ipsos polls. Both will wait until Ipsos releases the weekly results of their poll on Friday. Last week, Ispos release was substantially different than what Reuter's released the same day. Which has been the case more often than not.

Coldheartedtruth Teller said...

No one has come up with a single violation of the laws in this story. Trump's demand for a special prosecutor isn't going to happen. Rudy Giuliani is going off the deep end with the rhetoric comparing it to Watergate or worse. Even Judicial Watch, has not said that thee was illegal. Was it a bad idea? Hell yes. But it's not against the law.

Coldheartedtruth Teller said...

NBC 8%
Reuters 12%

Cherry pick.

Anonymous said...


CH,

if you were to factor in the MSDNC / Kos / TPM / Mother Jones / Survey Monkey polling data you would see that the queen of the cankles is pulling away and is poised to win by a landslide.

KD, Dead Heat said...

More polling is out, the lead Clinton, err not clintion, what do we call her? Given that yesterday she made the case that what bill does, does not reflect upon her part of the Clinton trade mark, nor does what she did as Sec of State have anything to do with her running for Prez, nor does the Clinton Family Foundation have anything to do with her, any how really she has squandered her lead, it is now a dead heat.

Remember, she has spent $225 million more then Trump, she has a paid staff 10x the size of his, and she has the US Press.

C.H. Truth said...

Roger - the NBC/SM poll is on my side bar - it's a 43-38 spread in a four way race. Just as Silver does on 538, I use the four way race when a pollster provides both. So unless you also think Silver is cherry picking to make Clinton look bad... your accusation is sort of baseless.

I do the same thing as the Huffington Post and Real Clear Politics regarding Ipsos/Reuters, which is wait for the Ipsos weekly update. So unless you also believe that Huffington Post and RCP are cherry picking to make Clinton look bad... your accusation is sort of baseless.

Both of these have been explained multiple times and you still don't seem to get it. Why is this, Roger?

C.H. Truth said...

No one has come up with a single violation of the laws in this story.

Actually many people have come up with violations of the law. That doesn't mean that there are not disagreements. Even polifact declared the legality as being "hazy".

Any person in a political office is banned from taking any foreign money. WE know that. That is a law. While it's never been tested legally, most legal experts have concluded that it would include a spouse taking money as well (just as the law extends to spouses in private sector situations). The only question is whether or not that money going to the Clinton Foundation shields it.

What I find troubling Roger... is in the case of classified information, the law was clear (and clear it was broken as stated by the FBI director) - but there was no intent.

In the case of the Clinton foundation, there is no question what the "Intent" is. That is shown and proven based on Email. But now they want to argue that the law is unclear.

Funny how that works for the Clintons, huh?

Moreover... there are other issues such as conflict of interests and/or bribery.

The trouble Roger, is that the private sector statutes regarding conflict of interest and bribery cases do not require anything more than the mere appearance of conflict. They do not have to find any smoking gun proof of anything. Accepting a gift or anything else from someone who does business with you is illegal.

But it would be unlikely that a "Clinton" would be held to that same standard.

Now would it?

wphamilton said...

Quid pro quo for access is a potential violation of the law.

I think that what "No one has come up with a single violation of the laws" really means is that there is still enough plausible deniability, especially given the Clinton defense of "I was too dumb to know better".

wphamilton said...

" Accepting a gift or anything else from someone who does business with you is illegal. "

Not exactly - it depends on value, the nature of the gift, its relation to a business activity, the laws of the particular government. It is safe to say however that the astronomical sums given to the Clinton Foundation soar over that bar.

But it does bring up another factor: some foreign nations have more severe prohibitions than we do, and cash for access definitely prosecutable. I suspect that entities from those nations are among those the Foundation has done business with.

I want to ask of any of you Clinton supporters: why does it even matter if a Prosecutor can or cannot put together an iron-clad case to indict Clinton? You know that she will not be charged regardless. Is that the bar you set for impeccable conduct? She's not in jail, therefore is not corrupt? I seriously want to know, because that perspective is personally mind-boggling.

KD, Hillary Sighting, kinda said...

I really can not get over the defense of "Clinton" the brand,, by Clinton the woman that is not the same as Clinton the Family .

That was a very odd and creative thing for her, them , it to do, reminds me of bill the rapist defense on the meaning of "is".

The older female Clinton was asked about the other Clinton's Family Charity, the older Clinton called the AP story "Absurd".

there you have it.


Clinton called into CNN's "AC360" to call the AP Story "Absurd", IF something has not "legs" then why come out of deep cover to address it?

C.H. Truth said...

Not exactly - it depends on value, the nature of the gift, its relation to a business activity, the laws of the particular government. It is safe to say however that the astronomical sums given to the Clinton Foundation soar over that bar.

Because I work for a public company, we are governed by those principles. I believe the dollar amount of a gift is $25.00 or more. Someone could buy you a cup of coffee, or get you a sweatshirt, or whatever. But you are right. There is no threshold large enough anywhere to account for these sorts of donations.

None of those laws require anyone to "prove" you did anything in exchange for the gift. Simply taking it is the crime, in and of itself.

opie' said...

Gee, CH, giving vast sums of money to a foundation that actually does lots of good. What a horrible concept real philanthropy!! But to your jaded eye, it is a criminal enterprise and will continue to be such. Like rudy says, RICO should be used. Idiot and he's all yours. LOL

wphamilton said...

Good question. What has the Clinton Foundation accomplished, specifically? I have seen reference to the 2015 annual report of the Clinton Health Access Initiative which has purportedly distributed vaccines and contraceptives, but no outside evaluations. How much of the two billion dollars has been utilized by the CHAI spin-off?

I have also seen the initiatives described as "delicate since the outcomes are more 'fuzzy' and often entail shifting perceptions, altering policies of governments, developing partnerships, etc." which, it seems to me, is vague language that could describe peddling access to the US State Department. Among other things ... but not among those things are quantifiable achievement.

So what did you have in mind, opie?