In the main, the Clinton campaign is probably correct in its belief that it can count down the clock to November without seriously addressing the twin controversies that continue to dog her candidacy: her use of a private email server as secretary of state and the suspicion that unsavory entities made large donations to the Clinton Foundation to curry favor with the Clintons. And yes, the Clinton campaign is mostly right that neither of these controversies has produced anything remotely as disconcerting as what Donald Trump offers on a daily basis.
Still, Clinton’s attitude towards what amount to a serious lapse in judgment in one case and a cesspit of conflicting interests in the other is baffling:
Clinton remains, as one ally described, as decidedly and defiantly “puritan” as she was 17 months ago that the email investigation is nothing more than a partisan attack. Close allies characterize her as frustrated by the ongoing focus on the issue of her email server because she still fundamentally believes she did nothing to bend the rules. She is also resentful that Trump is only trailing by single-digits in national polls when she thinks there is no comparison between her baggage and his and that a Clintonian double standard is at play.
The use of the email server was a clear violation of State Department rules, and was plain stupid to boot. The Clinton Foundation was a problem you could see coming a mile away, back when the Times reported that Canadian mining magnates were plowing millions of dollars into the foundation even as they helped Rosatom purchase uranium interests in the United States. But for the Clintons, all controversies, even the legitimate ones, are seen through the prism of persecution, and nothing is going to change that.
The hilarious part is when allies like James Carville complain that the work of the Clinton Foundation is pure. “I will lay back and mourn for those who will die because they’re not going to get the vaccines they need,” he told Politico. Seems to me that if the crown prince of Bahrain really cared about those vaccines, he could find some way of funding them other than through the Clintons, right?