As yet another member of President Obama's administration desperately attempts to define their own legacy (with words other than "failed", "rigged", or "favoritism"), Attorney General Loretta Lynch put on her gentlest, quietest voice for an 'exit' interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, admitting she "regretted sitting down" with Bill Clinton because "it gave people concern" and wants to be remembered for ensuring justice to "all Americans."
As The Hill reports, Lynch said Sunday that the fallout from her tarmac meeting with former President Bill Clinton was "painful" for her.
Lorettya Lynch on the fallout over her meeting with Bill Clinton: "It was painful for me" #CNNSOTU https://t.co/w3ewyrtBNb pic.twitter.com/bZA9V0qzrC
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) December 18, 2016
"I do regret sitting down and having a conversation with him, because it did give people concern. And as I said, my greatest concern has always been making sure that people understand that the Department of Justice works in a way that is independent and looks at everybody equally," Lynch said on CNN's "State of the Union."
"And when you do something that gives people a reason to think differently, that's a problem. It was a problem for me. It was painful for me, and so I felt it was important to clarify it as quickly and as clearly and as cleanly as possible."
The Clinton campaign has cited Comey's decision to send a letter to Congress just days before the election about newly discovered emails as one of the reasons she lost.
"But certainly if Bill Clinton hadn't gotten on the tarmac that time and gone to you, things might have been different," said host Jake Tapper. "You would have had more say. You would have been able to control Comey more ... It might have changed the letter that he gave at the end there."
Lynch replied: "I don't think it would have changed his view of what he had to say or not say to Congress."
So to be clear, Lynch regrets the meeting only because she was caught and it caused controversy... not because it was clearly a bad judgment call!
But, as Lynch went on to explains, she wants her legacy at DOJ to be one of inclusion...
http://fave.api.cnn.io/v1/fav/
Once again, defining the narrative is key - "inclusion" - which appears to defined by her and the DoJ as easing and deciminalizing any law-breaking activity that appears to bias against poor or minorities (whether or not they actually broke the law or not). As a reminder, The New York Post noted earlier this year that even a senior Justice Department official predicts the decriminalization-cum-deincarceration movement will backfire in higher crime nationwide. “In five years the crime rate is going to be crazy again,” he said.
The official, who oversees probation of felons paroled from federal prisons and who requested anonymity, worries the new department policy will be abused.
“I don’t see liberal judges even attempting to make people pay or spending the time making an accurate determination of a person being ‘indigent,’ ” he said. “It’s another way of not holding people accountable for their actions.”
The Justice guidance defines “indigent” as anybody who might be “eligible for public benefits,” but not actually receiving them. “Jurisdictions may benefit from creating statutory presumptions of indigency for certain classes of defendants,” the source said.
The administration claims cops and courts conspire to exploit poor blacks to generate city revenue in some kind of shakedown. But data show blacks fail to pay their fines at far greater rates than whites, so why not target whites if cash extortion is the objective?
Many of the cities with the highest fines, such as Philadelphia, are run by Democrats; and the Justice Department is no piker when it comes to levying fines.
“US attorneys always want fines and restitution amounts in the millions from people who have little chance of ever paying it back,” the department official said.
Liberals are actually to blame for the trend they’re trying to reform. Court fines and fees help pay for all the new costs liberals have added to the system, such as drug counseling and home electronic monitoring. They’ve also pushed judges to assess more fines in lieu of incarceration, especially for drug offenders.
Yet now they claim the whole court fine and bail system is racist.
Former federal civil rights attorney Hans Bader, now with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, describes the latest reforms as a “massive assault on the criminal justice system.”
It’s a slippery slope to clemency for criminals, large and small.