By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX — A trusted tipster calling a TV station here led to a reminder of the way Washington, D.C., really works, even when the national capital city’s denizens are far from the Northeast Corridor and close to the smuggling lanes of the desert Southwest.
Presumed Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump tweeted his outrage against the Phoenix incident, although Trump was more oblique in commenting on a different event that occurred the same day of high interest to pro-lifers, a Supreme Court decision.
A little chat, a handshake, a knowing wink or a curled lip can do wonders for advancing the political world’s games. While national reporters usually keep a focus on public factors like Tea Partiers or alleged lurking racism, a threat or corrupt suggestion in a private place may have more to do with achieving results.
When, for instance, U.S. Supreme Court conservative votes shockingly upheld Obamacare by cravenly twisting words in 2012 and 2015, the facts on the table may have mattered less than sharp edges under the table.
But intriguers should make sure they have believable tales to tell if veils are ripped away.
After Phoenix ABC television affiliate KNXV, Channel 15, popped a surprise by asking left-wing U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch about a secret airport meeting she’d just had here with corrupt former President Bill Clinton on June 27, she tried to shrug it off as a half-hour of small talk.
Interestingly, Lynch said Clinton’s topics included his playing golf here.
Shortly thereafter, on July 5, Lynch’s FBI said it wouldn’t recommend a criminal indictment of Bill Clinton’s seriously corrupt, lying wife, Hillary, the presumptive Democrat Party 2016 presidential nominee, for misusing highly classified government email information.
Making some small talk myself on July 2, a retired newspaper investigative reporter told me that Bill Clinton needn’t have made any explicit references about the point he wanted to get across to Lynch, who surely recalled that the former president had given her the gift of a previous powerful assignment as U.S. attorney for the eastern district of New York.
Keeping tabs on what’s happening at Phoenix’s intriguingly named Sky Harbor International Airport is done in a number of ways. They include following movements from the soaring tan and silver control tower that’s one of the highest in North America to asking advice from “Navigators,” volunteers who wander the terminals to provide information and guidance to travelers.
Sky Harbor’s growth reflects this metropolitan area’s, from having 42 scheduled airline departures a day in 1957 to serving more than 44 million passengers in 2015, according to Wikipedia.
The KNXV-TV newsman who broke the airport secret-meeting story, Christopher Sign, told Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly that “it made my jaw drop” to learn from a source about the clandestine confab.
On June 30 talkmeister and avid golfer Rush Limbaugh, who understands being out on the links, led off his national radio show by expressing amazement over Lynch saying Clinton helped pass the time by talking about golfing while here.
“The story is he was playing golf in Phoenix…108 degrees. . . . Somebody who has had serious heart surgery,” Limbaugh said, adding that he didn’t think the airport encounter was “happenstance” at all.
One account said Lynch allowed Clinton to barge onto her plane on the tarmac because it was so hot outside. However, playing a summer round of golf would have been hotter for longer.
Trump specifically tweeted that the airport meeting showed, “The system is totally rigged. Does anybody really believe that meeting was just a coincidence?”
However, when syndicated radio talk host Mike Gallagher interviewed the loquacious Trump on June 30 about the U.S. Supreme Court’s strong, sweeping pro-abortion Hellerstedt decision of June 27, Trump deflected to his well-known position that he would appoint good judges.
The Washington Post said that by responding, Trump broke “a peculiar three-day silence on the issue that raised eyebrows among political observers and his socially conservative supporters.”
Neither LifeNews.com nor the Post indicated that Trump showed familiarity with the details or implications of Hellerstedt in denying needed health and safety protections to clients at abortuaries.
Meanwhile, two days before FBI Director James Comey announced on July 5 that there’d be no recommendation to indict Hillary Clinton, the retired chairman of the Maricopa County Republican Party, based in Phoenix, told The Wanderer the Clintons knew just how to handle their situation.
“To my thinking, the Clinton-Lynch meeting is confirmation that they knew they would have complete legal immunity from any negative consequences of their actions. They are very intelligent, albeit corrupt, lawyers,” said Rob Haney.
“As lawyers, they knew exactly that what they were doing would have had serious legal consequences had they been conservatives. But they knew that they, their handlers and their operatives had full control of the judicial process.
“If anything, their actions could have been purposeful in order to prejudice the whole case about Hillary’s emails as well as the possible prosecution of Bill Clinton for his involvement in the Clinton Foundation financial scandal,” Haney said.
As for Trump’s reaction to Hellerstedt, Haney said: “I believe Trump’s low-keying his response . . . is a result of his having already stated that he would appoint only pro-life Supreme Court justices. His pro-life statement is a litmus test that no candidate in previous presidential elections dared to state for fear of being attacked by the Democrat Party’s supporting media. Trump has already taken the ‘high ground’ never even glanced at by any other candidate.
“His thinking might be that he may have some pro-aborts sitting on the fence. It serves no purpose to comment at length on the court’s decision over which he had no control and push those pro-aborts unnecessarily to Hillary. He has already stated clearly what his position would be with justice appointees over which he would have control,” said Haney, a pro-life conservative.
Worthy Of Comment
The Wanderer also asked Fr. Frank Pavone, national director of the New York-based Priests for Life, to comment on Trump’s response to the June 27 Hellerstedt decision.
Pavone had praised Trump’s June 10 speech to social and religious conservatives at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Washington, D.C. (See June 23 hardcopy issue of The Wanderer, p. 3A, “Fr. Pavone Says Trump Speech ‘Crystal Clear’ Supporting Life, Religious Liberty.”)
“The Supreme Court case is worthy of commentary from all prominent Americans, but more important than having Mr. Trump say something about decisions like this is having him do something about them, like nominating pro-life judges and signing pro-life legislation, which he has already promised to do,” Pavone said on July 1.
“It does not bother me that he may not be up to speed on all the specific court and legislative battles taking place right now. The key is that he surrounds himself with good advisers who are on top of these details, and then does what a president needs to do to protect the unborn and advance our cause,” he added.
“In the end, we are not looking to elect someone who will do our work for us, but rather who will do his, and not stand in the way as we do ours,” Pavone said.
In a July 1 post at National Review Online, traditional-values champion Maggie Gallagher lamented what she saw as Trump’s weakness on religious liberty, saying:
“The reason we are so easily fooled and so easily satisfied by a few crumbs from the mouth of a candidate like Trump is that we don’t see an alternative. We are weak and defenseless and are reduced to begging a few words from a man whose character is as weak as his commitment to fight for our rights.”
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