Former New York Times Editor: “Hillary Clinton Is Fundamentally Honest”
Jill Abramson, the former executive editor of The New York Times, weighs in on Hillary Clinton’s ongoing struggle to appear honest and trustworthy:
As an editor I’ve launched investigations into her business dealings, her fundraising, her foundation and her marriage. As a reporter my stories stretch back to Whitewater. I’m not a favorite in Hillaryland. That makes what I want to say next surprising. Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest and trustworthy.
Curiously, Abramson defends this conviction even as she recounts the various instances in which Clinton has been less than “fundamentally honest,” including:
- Her involvement with the scandal-plagued Whitewater Development Corporation in the 1970s and 1980s, the details of which she withheld from the public as First Lady;
- Her corporate speeches for clients such as Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and UBS, the contents of which she has withheld from the public as the Democratic frontrunner;
- Her decision to use a private email server located in the basement of her Chappaqua, N.Y. mansion to conduct official government business, a practice she withheld from the public as Secretary of State;
- Her secret State Department correspondence with Sidney Blumenthal, the former Bill Clinton aide who became an amateur spook, the existence of which Clinton refused to acknowledge even after Gawker reported on it in 2013;
- And her well-documented flip-flops regarding the regulation of the finance industry and overseas trade agreements, the logic of which she has barely bothered to articulate.
“Still,” Abramson concludes her column, “Clinton has mainly been constant on issues and changing positions over time is not dishonest.”
Hmm. We’re not so sure.
