"Sixteen Words" controversy in 2003 State of the Union
According to The Washington Post, when occupying troops found no evidence of a current nuclear program, the statement and how it came to be in the speech became a focus for critics in Washington and foreign capitals to press the case that the White House manipulated facts to take the United States to war. The Post reported, "Dozens of interviews with current and former intelligence officials and policymakers in the United States, Britain, France and Italy show that the Bush administration disregarded key information available at the time showing that the Iraq-Niger claim was highly questionable."
Moving along to 2015:
'Clinton Cash' author says no "direct evidence" of wrongdoing
The most significant of the allegations [of quid pro quo] center on a Russian company that was approved by the State Department to purchase a Canadian uranium company, giving Russia [Putin] a sizable stake in the world’s uranium market, after a $2.3 million donation to the Clinton Foundation. But Stephanopoulos pointed out that the State Department was one of nine agencies that signed off on the deal, and that “there’s no evidence at all that Hillary Clinton got directly involved at all in this decision.” (A smiliar argument was made by Clinton surrogate Lanny Davis over on Fox News Sunday.)
“There were nine different agencies who approved it,” Stephanopoulos said. “Doesn’t that suggest that that was because there was no national security concern, not because of some nefarious influence by Hillary Clinton?”
“We don’t have direct evidence,” Schweizer said. “But it warrants further investigation because, again, this is part of the broader pattern. You either have to come to the conclusion that these are all coincidences, or something else is afoot.”
So, if I have this right, the finding of
no evidence in 2003, was good enough to convict the Bush administration of manipulation of facts to take the country to war. But in 2015, no "
direct evidence" is not good enough to follow the trail of millions of dollars benefiting (putting it charitably) lining the Clinton pockets?
Not to mention the possible damage to our national security... I don't know, maybe I'm missing something.
And another thing...
if Dick Chaney could manipulate "different agencies" to include something on a speech, you are telling me Hillary could not manipulate "different agencies" to approve something she wanted, something that could be very lucrative?
