“Well, I read the obituary, and I realized that his family loved him, and I think that’s something to be grateful for, and when your life is over that’s all there is to say. But I was taught not to talk about people that I — you know. I have nothing to say. Except I’m glad he died with the love of his family.”
— Bill Clinton, on CNN, about the death of Ken Starr.
“As I’m sure many can understand, my thoughts about Ken Starr bring up complicated feelings. But of more importance, is that i imagine it’s a painful loss for those who love him.”
— Monica Lewinsky, quoted by the AP, on Ken Starr’s death.
Ken Starr, who led the Whitewater investigation into former President Bill Clinton, died Tuesday at 76, CNBC reports.
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A federal judge has thrown out Donald Trump’s lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, saying the former president “is seeking to flaunt a two-hundred-page political manifesto outlining his grievances against those that have opposed him.”
Chelsea Clinton said that she used to be friends with Ivanka Trump, Insider reports.
Said Clinton: “We were friends. She is not the person I called when I was curious about something for my kids or if I was debating a life decision, but we were definitely friends … and then she went to the dark side.”
Hillary Clinton tweeted that the “right is trying to make this about me again,” as Republicans try to compare how she was not charged over her use of a private email server and the ongoing probe into Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents.
Said Clinton: “I can’t believe we’re still talking about this, but my emails… The fact is that I had zero emails that were classified.”
She added: “I’m more tired of talking about this than anyone, but here we are.”
“Hillary Clinton decided to start wearing the pantsuits that became her political trademark after ‘suggestive’ photos taken of her during a visit to Brazil were used in a lingerie ad in the mid-1990s,” The Guardian reports.
“A photo of Clinton showed a glimpse of her underwear while seated. The Brazilian lingerie company DuLoren deployed the image in an ad containing the words: ‘A tribute to one of the most important women of the decade.'”
Joe Conason: “As more and more evidence of the former president’s reckless and potentially criminal misconduct comes to light, he and his defenders keep pointing to ‘her emails.’ They insist that because the Justice Department declined prosecution of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after a long and thorough probe of how she handled allegedly classified information, there should be no investigation, let alone indictment or conviction of Trump.”
“But while we don’t yet know the extent or nature of Trump’s abuse of classified documents, we can determine how many were found by investigators, after exhaustive searches, among Clinton’s thousands of State Department emails.”
“The accurate and definitive answer is zero – although few if any news outlets have informed the public of that startling fact. Moreover, it is a fact that the Trump administration itself confirmed three years ago.”
Hillary Clinton said she has “no regrets” about choosing to stay in her marriage to former President Bill Clinton, The Hill reports.
Said Clinton: “It took a lot of, honestly, prayer, and thoughtfulness, and talking to people I totally trusted, to really think through — because it was all being done in public.”
She added: “So it made it even more painful and difficult.”
“I want to thank the Russian Academy for this Lifetime Achievement Award.”
— Hillary Clinton, on Twitter, responding to sanctions placed on her by Russia.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) told Fox News that he agrees with a Donald Trump statement in which the former president suggests Democrat operatives tied to the Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign should have been executed.
Trump said that the actions of the Clinton operatives, as described by a Fox News report, “should be subject to criminal prosecution,” and at other times in U.S. history, “this crime would have been punishable by death.”
Said Jordan: “I think is right on target. This is truly unprecedented, truly something that has never happened in the history of our great country.”
“Hillary Clinton is expected to speak at next week’s New York State Democratic Party Convention,” CNBC reports.
“The development comes as Clinton, who also worked as secretary of State during the first half of President Barack Obama’s administration, works to maintain relevance in a party that could be headed for defeat in this year’s midterm elections.”
“It may also stoke speculation about a potential new Clinton bid for elected office.”
Playbook: “With the Democratic Party on course for a devastating midterm election and party elder statesmen stepping in to help, people close to Bill and Hillary Clinton said the former first couple sees it as an opportunity to insert themselves back into political life.”
“The intra-party divisions have given them a chance to flex their centrist, dealmaking brand of politics as a way to move the party forward.”
“Another factor that motivated Bill Clinton to get more engaged: the low ratings and muted public reaction to Impeachment: American Crime Story, the FX show produced by Monica Lewinsky.”
Visitor logs obtained by Daily Mail reveal Jeffrey Epstein visited the White House at least 17 times during Bill Clinton’s first term between 1993 and 1995.
“Donations to the Clinton Foundation plummeted to $16 million last year, down nearly 75% from the organization’s peak when former secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was running for president,” Axios reports.
Huma Abedin, a longtime aide to Hillary Clinton, told NBC News that she is not ruling out a potential bid for political office one day: “I’m not saying no to anything.”
Monica Lewinsky did a very interesting interview with Kara Swisher:
SWISHER: Your life has been so derailed by what happened between you and Bill Clinton. How do you feel about the fact that your life has been so altered and his has not, in a lot of ways?
LEWINKSY: I’ve had moments of bitterness about it, but how I feel now is, I don’t really need anybody else’s life to be fucked up. I just need people to not stand in my way. I think where it is important — my background is in psychology and social psychology. And so I’m always stepping back to look at the bigger picture. And when I look at the bigger picture, where I see it as problematic is, what does it mean for society? What would it have meant if he had stepped down? What would it have meant if he had been meted a punishment that was appropriate at the time for something like that? Would that have then ended up changing history in different ways? Or we see now, too — I mean, when the news came out about Ken Starr being so involved with Epstein. And you’re like, oh my god, the two most powerful men from 1998…
SWISHER: And Clinton too.
LEWINSKY: … in this investigation, Clinton and Starr, and they’re both tied to Epstein. And I’m not saying that — I’m not in any way drawing a parallel between what Epstein did with these young women and what happened between Bill and myself. But I think that the fact that these two men could then ride along on their power and end up there, that shows us something. And also too, I think people of a certain age and a certain stature, they end up not changing, not being forced to change.
Starting tonight on FX: Impeachment: American Crime Story, which dramatizes the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky drama.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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