Former Whitewater Counsel Endorses Clinton – And Dismisses ‘Scandals’ - by Joe Conason

October 7, 2016 12:02 am

-snip-

As Chertoff told Renee Montagne on NPR, Clinton “exhibited good understanding of what the issues and challenges were, [was] steady in terms of her approach and also interested in educating herself. And I generally found her to have good judgment. And in the area of national security, those kind of temperament issues and issues about being well-informed I think are critical tools for the next president at a period of time when I think our challenges to security are perhaps more acute than at any time since Sept. 11.”

The surprise isn’t that Chertoff would assess Clinton in those terms but that he would say so publicly and forthrightly. Living in New Jersey, where Trump tool Chris Christie is still governor, Chertoff could have silently cast a vote for Clinton and never said a word.

Yet the former prosecutor went still further, essentially disavowing his own role in the scandal propaganda campaign against the Clinton administration. That is not merely surprising but gratifying (and a belated acknowledgment of the facts outlined in our free e-book, The Hunting of Hillary.)

Asked about Clinton’s email problems, Chertoff briskly brushed that overhyped “scandal” aside, comparing it with the Whitewater circus as a frivolous distraction from serious issues:

In the end … I go back to Sept. 11, 2001, and I was on duty. I was the head of the (Justice Department’s) Criminal Division and I was part of the immediate response to prevent that from happening again. In looking back on that I realized that in the ’90s we spent an enormous amount of time pursuing issues involving the Clintons’ associations back in Arkansas in the ’80s, Whitewater and other things, and we didn’t spend nearly the same amount of time on what bin Laden was up to and others were up to in the region. And it reminded me that — you know — the ability to spend an inordinate amount of time chasing small peccadilloes is a luxury we only have in a world at peace.

If Chertoff didn’t quite confess that the prosecutors and Congressional probers abused their authority — and that the Clintons were entirely innocent — he conceded that the pursuit of Whitewater was an absurd waste of precious time and resources. It may be too little and it’s almost too late. But he gave a nod to the truth at long last, and that will have to suffice.

http://www.nationalmemo.com/former-whitewater-counsel-endorses-clinton-and-dismisses-scandals/