By Harold Pease, Ph. D

Hillary Clinton’s refusal to use government secured servers and a government email address, opting instead for her own unsecured home server as Secretary of State, is now criticized by Democrats and Republicans alike. Did she not know, or worse care, that as Secretary of State every enemy, terrorist, or even sometimes-friendly countries would attempt to hack her for the information to destroy or weaken us? Even Sony, Blue Cross, and Home Depot have been hacked. Most of what she did was extremely sensitive, even classified. Our national intelligence was potentially on public display for four years. How could she defy the Federal Records Act? Certainly this could not be out of ignorance. If classified records were found on anyone else’s home server they would go to jail.

Still, the now called “Email Scandal” is not a total shock for most over forty quite aware that the Clinton’s, Bill and Hillary, have never acted as though the rules really applied to them. The Clinton Administration was a-buzz with scandal after scandal.

Perhaps no woman in U.S. History is more loved or hated than Hillary Rodham Clinton. Indeed, few over forty have not already formulated an opinion with respect to her. There are few neutrals. This column is for the millennial generation, those who never knew the Bill Clinton Administration. As the establishment media have already elected her their Democratic Presidential Candidate, with no opportunity for competition or dissenting public expression, younger voters need to know something of her past.

We begin with Whitewater. Here the Clinton’s (Bill and Hillary), while governor and first lady of Arkansas and the McDougals (Jim and Susan), formed the Whitewater Development Corporation. The four purchased 230 acres of undeveloped land on the White River intending to create vacation home lots for retirees. It is alleged that Bill Clinton used his influence as governor to pressure David Hale to lend $300,000 to Susan McDougal, a Clinton partner, in the land deal. At the time Jim McDougal was Governor Clinton’s economic adviser and later created his own bank, the Madison Guaranty to fund the project, hiring attorney Hillary Clinton of the Rose Law Firm to make everything legal. The four equal partners were intricately connected. The scheme collapsed in 1989. Ultimately fifteen associated with this fraudulent land deal, which ended costing many retirees their life savings, and the tax payer some $73 million; went to jail—everyone except the Clinton’s. Even Jim Guy Tucker the governor succeeding Bill served time, so extensive did Whitewater become.

By the time everything came to a head the Clinton’s were in the White House and had legions of defenders and records were strangely hidden or misplaced. Independent Counsel Robert Fiske ordered the Clinton’s to surrender documents relating to the corrupt Madison Guaranty. The Clinton’s reported them as missing. But two years later they mysteriously reappeared, found on the desk of Hillary’s personal secretary. By this time much of the heat was off and the story largely undermined by a sympathetic Clinton press. Besides, the special prosecutor, Robert Fiske, had been chosen by President Clinton to be his new Attorney General. Kenneth Starr continued the Whitewater investigation but leading witnesses Susan McDougal, Jim Guy Tucker, and Clinton’s Attorney General Webster Hubbell, a Rose Law Firm friend of Hillary Clinton, refused to cooperate as key witnesses against the Clintons with the latter pleading the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination. President Bill Clinton later pardoned Susan McDougal and Jim Guy Tucker. The story fades away replaced largely by the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal.

The mysterious death of the Clinton Deputy White House counsel, Vince Foster, added much intrigue to the story. He had been the special friend of Hillary and a Rose Law Firm associate, and was charged with defending the Clintons on Whitewater charges. He was murdered or committed suicide, at Fort Marcy Park, Virginia. White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum removed Foster’s files on Whitewater from Foster’s desk so they could not to be discovered by park police.

But this is only one of a good number of scandals in which Hillary is a leading participant. Perhaps another column will be necessary outlining her involvement, alleged or otherwise, in: File Gate, Cattle Futures Gate, Travel Gate, and half dozen more. In fact, if she announces her candidacy for the president, she will be the most scandal ridden potential presidential candidate in U. S. History. She and her devoted followers would say that it is just the “vast right conspiracy,” but there are far too many of these to feel comfortable with this explanation. Certainly the Email Scandal suggests bi-partisan concern for her probable serious security breaches as Secretary of State.