{"id":9564,"date":"2016-11-01T11:57:37","date_gmt":"2016-11-01T18:57:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=9564"},"modified":"2016-11-01T11:57:37","modified_gmt":"2016-11-01T18:57:37","slug":"quis-custodiet-ipsos-custodes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/quis-custodiet-ipsos-custodes\/","title":{"rendered":"Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The Corner The one and only.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ <em>National Review<\/em><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In the \u201cyou can\u2019t believe this\u201d category, Washington, D.C. lawyer, former Clinton official, and self-described Hillary Clinton supporter Jamie Gorelick goes to the pages of the Washington Post to complain that James Comey\u2019s FBI reinvestigation is a peril to democracy.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>That is a hypothetical, although Gorelick had no apparent problem earlier when Comey could not square the circle of detailing how Clinton\u2019s reckless behavior did not rise to the level of an indictable offense.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>What is not a hypothetical, but a real peril to democracy, is Ms. Clinton\u2019s de facto undermining federal law as secretary of state to hide private communications and thereby endanger national security \u2014 well aside from calibrating secretary of state face-time with donations to her family\u2019s foundation \u2014 and disguising those facts by obfuscation, lying, and stone-walling.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>For that matter, what is destroying democracy is an elite culture of amorality in Washington, in which incestuous politicians, journalists, and lawyers go out from government and politics into government-related finance, law, and lobbying, often cashing in without proven expertise or experience \u2014 in other words, in the manner that one Jamie Gorelick (whose Post byline of high government service mysteriously stops nearly 20 years ago at 1997) served for nearly six years (1997\u20132003) as vice chairman of the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) under the infamous Franklin Raines. Raines and Gorelick oversaw a $10 billion loss, putting Fannie Mae on the trajectory to its implosion during the 2008 meltdown.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>For all that damage, Gorelick walked away from the Fannie Mae mess with $26,466,834 in compensation and \u201cbonuses,\u201d although for what reason and on what merit no one has yet ascertained. The bonus was almost as mysterious as her own original appointment to Fannie Mae as an outgoing Clinton official, given that Gorelick had no banking expertise whatsoever to help manage one of the nation\u2019s most important lending institutions.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In today\u2019s Washington ethos, Gorelick, who owed her job to Bill Clinton, and, thanks to him, made millions as her agency imploded, now writes about the FBI director\u2019s supposed ethical problems as emblematic of a danger to democracy \u2014 in a not so subtle fashion to help the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. Gorelick\u2019s public career could charitably be called a textbook case of conflict of interest. Meanwhile, no one any longer recalls the millions of Americans who lost their homes and savings in part due to the consequences of sloppy, unethical, and callous leadership of Washington\u2019s government-sponsored finance and lending.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>If you seek the monuments of Trump\u2019s origins, look around Washington.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Corner The one and only. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review In the \u201cyou can\u2019t believe this\u201d category, Washington, D.C. lawyer, former Clinton official, and self-described Hillary Clinton supporter Jamie Gorelick goes to the pages of the Washington Post to complain that James Comey\u2019s FBI reinvestigation is a peril to democracy. That is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1092,1091,11,117,185],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2ug","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8386,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/remember-when-the-left-welcomed-exposes-of-the-clintons\/","url_meta":{"origin":9564,"position":0},"title":"Remember When the Left Welcomed Expos\u00e9s of the Clintons?","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 6, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\u00a0\/\/ NRO- The Corner In July 2008 Todd Purdum wrote a devastating and controversial take-down of Bill Clinton for Vanity Fair, outlining the sort of ethical and personal lapses that are back in the news seven years later. The Left largely welcomed the expos\u00e9 because it came\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Opinion&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Opinion","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo: President Clinton is sworn in during the Inauguration Ceremony at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. (January 20, 1997)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/12133633-standard-500x389.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6713,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/hillarys-odyssey\/","url_meta":{"origin":9564,"position":1},"title":"Hillary&#8217;s Odyssey","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 6, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"From Senator Clinton's tergiversations on Iraq to Secretary Clinton's lies on Benghazi by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online\u00a0 Hillary Clinton is no doubt a talented speaker. 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That is a worthy endeavor, given the loss of billions of dollars in U.S. tax revenue. Yet her husband, Bill Clinton, reportedly made $10 million as an advisor\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/admin-ajax2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5935,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/neither-secretary-clinton\/","url_meta":{"origin":9564,"position":3},"title":"Neither, Secretary Clinton","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 12, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Hillary Clinton\u2019s now infamous second question that followed, \u201cWas it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they\u2019d go kill some Americans?\u201d: \u201cWhat difference at this point does it make?\u201d is rightly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Benghazi&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Benghazi","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/benghazi\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9517,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/angry-reader-9\/","url_meta":{"origin":9564,"position":4},"title":"Angry Reader","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 17, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Comment from a Reader: \"But even before the latest revelations from an eleven-year-old Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump crudely talked about women\u201d TRUMP DID NOT TALK CRUDELY ABOUT WOMEN ON THIS TAPE- HE TALKED ABOUT HIS RIGHT AS A CELEBRITY TO SEXUALLY ASSAULT WOMEN!!! 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Quid\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hillary Clinton&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hillary Clinton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/public-figures\/hillary-clinton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"(Win McNamee\/Getty)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/hillary-clinton-scandals-an-exhausting-spectacle-500x292.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9564"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9564"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9565,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9564\/revisions\/9565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}