The coefficient of friction measures slickness. The lower the COF, the more slippery the object.
Nearly 25 years after leaving office, former President Bill Clinton’s COF remains as low as ever.
Wednesday on ABC’s “The View,” the former president showcased his trademark slickness when, first, he insisted that his wife, former first lady and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, had committed no crimes that would require a pardon from President Joe Biden then, without blinking, expressed an openness to said pardon.
“If President Biden wanted to talk to me about that, I would talk to him about it, but I don’t think I should be giving public advice on the pardon power,” the former president said in a clip posted to the social media platform X.
“I think it’s too — it’s a very personal thing,” he added, presumably referring to a potential pardon for his wife.
Bill Clinton has spent his life perfecting the art of convincing audiences that he cares about anyone other than himself. In this case, he showcased that skill by taking a deep breath and pursing his lips.
No doubt the affectation of deep personal anguish fooled the women of “The View.”
Alas, the former president’s skill at deceiving audiences goes beyond his ability to act as though he cares about others.
For instance, when asked about a potential pardon for his wife, he spoke of her infamous email scandal.
Will Biden pardon Hillary Clinton?
“Remember how the emails were such a big issue in 2016? Trump’s State Department found that Hillary sent and received exactly zero classified emails on her personal device. It was a made-up phone story,” Bill Clinton said.
🚨 Bill Clinton is open to a preemptive pardon for Hillary Clinton from President Joe Biden
“If Biden wanted to talk to me about that, I would talk to him about it, but I don’t think I should be giving public advice on the pardon power. I think it’s a very personal thing.” pic.twitter.com/CoYfodszMd
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) December 11, 2024
At first glance, Bill Clinton’s focus on his wife’s email scandal made little sense.
After all, when President-elect Donald Trump entered office for the first time in 2017, that scandal had long since come to light.
Still, as he has explained on many occasions, Trump did not want Hillary Clinton prosecuted.
“I had to make a decision,” Trump said in an August interview with Fox News’s Mark Levin. “Do I want to do this? Do I want to put the wife of the president of the United States — and Secretary of State, by the way — do I want to put her in prison?”
“I didn’t want to do that,” Trump added moments later.
JUST IN: President Trump criticizes the Biden-Harris DOJ for indicting him again this week and talks about why he didn’t prosecute Hillary Clinton to unify the country.
“This is the worst case of election interference that anyone has ever seen in our country. They do this in… pic.twitter.com/2S73C1sqWq
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) September 2, 2024
Note, however, that Bill Clinton said nothing about his wife’s role in the years-long Russia collusion hoax.
That travesty, of course, unfolded during Trump’s first administration. To date, no prominent official has paid a price for pushing that hoax.
Thus, when speaking of pardons, Bill Clinton undoubtedly had in mind the blanket pardon Biden issued for his son, Hunter Biden, earlier this month, though of course the former president could not say so.
President Biden did not simply pardon his son for tax- and gun-related convictions and guilty pleas. The pardon covered all of his son’s potential criminal activities dating to 2014, when Hunter Biden joined the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings.
In other words, the blanket pardon made it clear that President Biden intended to shield his son not primarily from tax- and gun-related problems but from any consequences of the Biden family’s decade-long dealings in Ukraine.
Hence the posture Bill Clinton assumed on “The View.” He had to know that the incoming Trump Department of Justice under Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi, as well as the incoming Trump FBI under Director nominee Kash Patel, will almost certainly not dredge up the email scandal — Trump could have done that during his first term — but instead will likely focus on the Russia collusion hoax.
Thus, Bill Clinton professed his wife’s innocence of charges she almost certainly will not face. Then, he proceeded to express openness to a pardon for charges she very well might face, though he did so without mentioning the actual reason she might need said pardon.
He remains as slick as ever.
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