Opinion

Just the Facts, Ma’am

Larry Kudlow Senior Contributor, CNBC
Font Size:

We knew there could be a big October surprise before this bizarre and unpopular election finally came to an end. But who knew it would come from e-mails found on a device used by former Rep. Anthony Weiner that was confiscated by the FBI after he sexted an underage woman — an act that cost him his job, his income, and his marriage?

As I pondered this on Friday afternoon, I had a faint recollection of Winston Churchill describing a tough loss in an MP election. Hat tip to Susan Varga, who located this Churchill gem: “In a twinkling of an eye, I found myself without an office, without a seat, without a party, and without an appendix.” Churchill had his appendix taken out during that election, which took place in 1922.

So let’s see here. Anthony Weiner lost his office and his seat. And while I don’t know about his appendix, he did lose his marriage for referring to matters below the waist.

And Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s aide and Weiner’s soon to be ex-wife, may well lose her seat and her office, although I couldn’t find any information about her appendix, despite a long Google search.

On the other hand, the FBI’s bombshell that it is reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail server may well cause the Democratic presidential candidate to lose her office, her seat, and her party. As to the condition of her appendix, we’ll just have to guess, since no one knows the state of her deteriorating health.

And then we have FBI director James Comey, who may well be on his way to losing his office, his seat, and his reputation. (I have no information on the status of his appendix.)

And how bizarrely ironic is it that Comey — who lost considerable credibility a couple of months ago for building an iron-clad case against Hillary and then letting her off the hook — is now reopening her case based not on Russian espionage or Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks, but on Anthony Weiner’s electronic sex life?

This will not bring honor and glory to J. Edgar Hoover’s venerable crime-fighting organization. Comey’s announcement, by the way, follows hot on the heels of the revelation that Clinton pal and Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe channeled near $500,000 into the failed state senate campaign of Jill McCabe, who is the wife of FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, who helped oversee the agency’s investigation into Clinton’s private-e-mail server. And let it be known that Hillary helped raise $1 million for McAuliffe’s PAC.

Did any of these connections have anything to do with Hillary’s getting off scot free from a criminal indictment? Nah.

But wait, could it be that Donald Trump’s accusation that the system is rigged is correct after all?

Now, from Churchill to Jack Webb. Remember him? He played LAPD Detective Sergeant Joe Friday on the great Dragnet series. He opened the show with, “This is the city: Los Angeles, California. I work here. I’m a cop.”

But the straight-shooting Detective Friday may be better known for this deadpan phrase: “Just the facts, ma’am.” Those are words that may go to the very heart of this presidential election.

No matter what James Comey unveils in the days ahead, if anything, virtually no one in this country believes Hillary Clinton will ever divulge “just the facts.”

That’s what the polls say, and for her they’re getting worse. And that’s exactly what the FBI bombshell has reminded the voting public. Clinton, Inc., is dishonest, above the law, on the take.

New WikiLeaks-provided e-mails from Clinton aide Doug Band reveal the true nature of the Clinton cash operation: No matter what the stated humanitarian goals of the Clinton Foundation, every fiber and sinew of the organization is wrapped in self-dealing, self-enrichment, fraud, and corruption.

This is how the Clinton’s got rich. They traded cash for State Department visits and cash for government favors (like signing away 20 percent of American uranium reserves to oligarchic pals of Vladimir Putin). And let’s not forget those $450,000 speeches by Bill Clinton and those $250,000 speeches by Hillary herself.

And she can’t even tell the truth about that, as leaked e-mails show that she said one thing to Wall Street and quite another to the public.

The election is a week and a half away, and the atmosphere has changed significantly. In the last several days, at long last, Donald Trump has been talking issues on the campaign trail. Issues like the economy, tax cuts, the need to repeal and rewrite Obamacare, and even African American inner-city problems. During this period Hillary Clinton was deluged with e-mail leaks and blindsided by the FBI.

Issues beat e-mail leaks. Polls are rapidly narrowing. Suddenly, the potential for a GOP three-house electoral sweep is growing larger.