Hillary Clinton has long been one of the most anti-free speech figures in American politics, including calling upon European officials to force Elon Musk to censor American citizens under the infamous Digital Services Act (DSA). She is now suggesting the arrest of Americans who spread what she considers disinformation. It is a crushingly ironic moment since it was her campaign that funded the infamous Steele dossier and spread false stories of Russian collusion during her presidential campaign. Presumably, that disinformation would not be treated as criminal viewpoints.
Speaking on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show this week, Clinton was asked about continued allegations of Russian efforts to disseminate Russian propaganda in the United States. Clinton responded:
“I think it’s important to indict the Russians, just as Muller indicted a lot of Russians who were engaged in direct election interference and boosting Trump back in 2016. But I also think there are Americans who are engaged in this kind of propaganda. And whether they should be civilly or even in some cases criminally charged is something that would be a better deterrence, because the Russians are unlikely, except in a very few cases, to ever stand trial in the United States.”
The interview was chillingly consistent with Clinton long antagonism toward free speech.
Clinton, of course, was not challenged by Maddow on the fact that her campaign was the conduit for disinformation linked to Russian intelligence services.
Not only did U.S. intelligence believe that the Clinton campaign was used to make the debunked claims, but it was clearly done for purely political purposes.
Clinton efforts were so obvious by July 2016 that former CIA Director John Brennan briefed former President Obama on Hillary Clinton’s alleged “plan” to tie then-candidate Donald Trump to Russia as “a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.” The Russian investigation was launched days after this briefing.
Her general counsel, Marc Elias, his former partner Michael Sussmann, and the campaign were later found involved in not just spreading the false claims from the Steele dossier but other false stories like the Alfa Bank conspiracy claim.
It was Elias who managed the legal budget for the campaign. We now know that the campaign hid the funding of the Steele dossier as a legal expense.
New York Times reporter Ken Vogel said that Elias denied involvement in the anti-Trump dossier. When Vogel tried to report the story, he said that Elias “pushed back vigorously, saying ‘You (or your sources) are wrong.’” Times reporter Maggie Haberman declared, “Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year.”
Elias was also seated next to John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, when he was asked about the role of the campaign, he denied categorically any contractual agreement with Fusion GPS. Even assuming that Podesta was kept in the dark, the Durham Report clearly shows that Elias knew and played an active role in pushing this effort.
The Clinton campaign lied to the media, spread false claims of Russian disinformation, and was accused of being a conduit for Russian intelligence. So would the “better deterrence” have been for Clinton herself to be arrested?
Sussmann ultimately did stand trial but was acquitted. Notably, John Durham noted that “no one at Fusion GPS … would agree to voluntarily speak with the Office” while both the DNC and Clinton campaign invoked privileges to refuse to answer certain questions.
For a person who is on her fourth memoir, Clinton is remarkably hostile to free speech. Notably, in all of these memoirs, she does not address her prominent role in calling for the censorship and now arrest of those with opposing views. She also does not discuss how her campaign lied to the media and funded the Steele dossier. Perhaps that is coming in the fifth memoir.
What is clear is that Clinton herself has no fear that such prosecution would ever await her. She is one of those who may silence others but not be silenced. The public is to be protected from views that she deemed disinformation, misinformation, or malinformation.
To that end, as one of the guardians of truth, Clinton chastised the media for not being more consistently anti-Trump, a daunting prospect since the media has been accused of running almost 90 percent negative stories on Trump.
Nevertheless, shortly after the second assassination attack on Trump, Clinton called Trump a danger to the world and added that “I don’t understand why it’s so difficult for the press to have a consistent narrative about how dangerous Trump is.”
Ideally, between the arrests of those accused of disinformation and an effective state media, Clinton hopes to rein in errant thoughts and viewpoints.
In the interview, Maddow did not have even a slight objection to the implications of arresting people with criminal viewpoints. Censorship and criminal prosecutions are such mainstream concepts that they are as unsurprising as a fourth Clinton memoir.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” (Simon & Schuster).
She pulled out all the stops to win the presidency. She out-dirty-tricked Nixon. The fictional “Russian dossier” that that her campaign paid for, an oppo “research” work-for-hire type document, almost destroyed Trump’s presidency and in the process injured democracy, our country, and faith in basic fairness in the land. I don’t know why she is still given book deals. I don’t know why, on these facts, anyone would assign any weight at all, to what she says. She is exhausting.
Gotta wonder why Turley fails to mention Trump’s suggestions/threats to arrest those he does not like…Well, no wonder to that, really, as Turley is always off to the far left.
Trump has often enjoyed walking up to a microphone and saying that his enemies should be investigated, prosecuted, or arrested by the government he wants to head. These enemies include a seemingly endless list of people, from James Comey, Liz Cheney, Pelosi to Joe Scarborough…just a few Trump wants to arrest..
Traitors all
I believe those and others amid them deserve to at the very least a jail cell for quite some time! Hilary has always considered herself above the law….ITHINK SHE DESERVES THE HARDEST SENTENCE OF ALL.
How about; I will defend to the death your right to say something with which I disagree? It was once the touchstone of a free society. Now it is threatened by institutional tyranny….and Democrats.
I hope the didn’t imply defending lies and make up facts
Besides being absolutely selfish, unaware and evil, she has NO SHAME. Incredible. Is there a Ripley’s Believe it or Not award for this?
James
A good read – Crimsoned Prairie by SLA Marshall, Brigadier General USAR, circa 1972. Some well documented insights into Grant, Sherman, Cook and Custer and their methods and views on mass extermination, like Sandy Creek. Not here to refight the civil war but every thing stated is true and accurate. Secession is not illegal and is a right of any state that wishes to pursue. There were zero treason charges against the Confederacy because they didn’t commit treason. The Victor writes the history books, two good Civil War books, one by National Geographic and the other by the Smithsonian. They’re different throughout, I will let you guess which is spun Union and which is spun Confederate. We use to love going to Books a Million and I would drift to the war history sections, when Obama got elected, those sections evaporated. I enjoy and agree with most of your posts.
Peace
“History is written by the winners.”
“In the last analysis our only claim to victory is that if we win the war we shall tell fewer lies about it than our adversaries. The really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits ‘atrocities’ but that it attacks the concept of objective truth; it claims to control the past as well as the future.”
“As I please”, George Orwell, 1943
Bazinga
* There’s an error in your thinking. It’s been kept quiet and it shall remain so.
Stanford has Custer’s original diaries or they did have. Probably spirited off.
Excerpt Crimsoned Prairie
Custer and the Great Design Chapter 7.
Author: Brig. Gen. SLA Marshall USAR
This was Sheridans doing. Sheridan held with but one solution to the Indian problem-extermination-and Custer was his quite pliable instrument.
There’s lots more, a great read. US Genweb also has some really great and interesting articles written in the years following the civil war as most all newspapers and historical documents in the South during the war had been burned or destroyed. Great testimonials of the civilians giving their testament as to what they endured at the hand of Shermans army and the war in general. Georgia and Alabama have really good documents but they are becoming more and more difficult to research.
Another great historical book on the Civil War, Field Fleet and Fort circa 1867, written by the testimony of veterans that fought the battles, not by the political pundits or politicians.
Hopefully, by my providing some of these start point tools it begins them on their own journey to prove me false or to question what we’ve all been told. The worm turns.
Peace
* Hillary needs a little crown or maybe a tiara as the queen of psyops. CNN, MSNBC are psyops. Tragically unstable people begin shooting people because of the confusion it has caused.
Professor Turley always uses the same somewhat attractive photo of Hillary. She does look well in black.
To paraphrase:
“It worked so well for me we have to outlaw it before they do it to us!”
Trump saying he called of the dogs so she sound not be put in jail was hilarious, and she isn’t denying it, and she is exploiting her immunity.
(OT)
KH: “The children of the community are the children of the community.”
Biden suffers from dementia. What’s her excuse?
And in a bitter pill:
Since 1996, The Teamsters Union has endorsed every democratic candidate for president. This year, it refused to endorse KH. Though its internal poll did show overwhelming support for Trump.
Didn’t Hillary pay for the discredited Steele Dossier? That’s a whole lot of disinformation.
“A Better Deterrence”: Hillary Clinton Calls for the Arrest of Americans Spreading Disinformation
Hillary Clinton – Pot Kettle Black
This vile & contemptible women’s moral turpitude has long been on full display for any person caring to pay attention.