At a certain point in the short story The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs, its users realize that having their wishes granted becomes a curse rather than a boon. At that point, their final wish is to undo the horrid consequences into which their greed and grief led them.
That brings us to the Democrats and the Epstein Files. They saw the scandal as the monkey's paw that would lead them to destroy Donald Trump. By yesterday, Democrats had to toss their own establishment into the fire, voting with Republicans to hold both Bill and Hillary Clinton in contempt for refusing a congressional subpoena in the investigation:
Nine Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted with Republicans Wednesday to recommend holding former President Bill Clinton in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena to testify as part of the panel’s investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Three Democrats sided with Republicans in voting for a separate measure to recommend also holding former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in contempt.
Their votes underscore the continued pressure Democrats are under to remain consistent in their calls for transparency and accountability in the Epstein case — no matter the person or the party affiliation or the dire consequences.
The contempt reports now head to the House floor. Assuming the measures advance, the administration could choose to prosecute the former first couple, which could lead to potential jail time for one or both.
The "pressure" Democrats feel results from their own bad choices over the past year. They convinced themselves that a fumbled effort by Pam Bondi to release new material from the Epstein files a year ago meant that the Department of Justice had discovered material implicating Trump. Rather than learn a lesson about the Epstein Files monkey's paw, they grabbed it out of the fire and began wish-casting with it instead. Now the corpses of Slick Willy and Cloth Wipe Hillary have risen from their graves and come a-knocking at their own door.
Even worse, Democrats realize they can't just wish them away now. Having forced the issue and screeched about full disclosure for months – not to mention tossing allegations of cover-ups around like confetti – they have no way to defend the Clintons' refusal to cooperate with the investigation. And that became even more true when photos emerged of Bill Clinton relaxing in Jeffrey Epstein's hot tub with an unnamed female on hand.
Notably, Politico never mentions the Tubba Bubba pics in its report. The Protection Racket Media still has its own monkey's paw consequences to come, it seems. Those pictures, however, reanimated the corpse of Clinton scandals long after the party thought they were in the rearview mirror.
Not that the Clintons left Democrats much choice in the matter, especially after the years of lawfare conducted by them against Trump. Former presidential and senatorial status no longer provides any kind of soft immunity from legal proceedings like subpoenas, nor any special negotiations on how testimony will get conducted. Jonathan Turley marvels at the "hubris" the Clintons displayed in attempting to manipulate the conditions of the subpoenas:
As previously discussed, the Clintons adopted a position that was devoid of any cognizable legal defense. It was simple hubris, telling Congress that they did not want to appear to be saying that congressional subpoenas are discretionary for them.
From the Whitewater case to the Lewinsky matter to the email scandal, the Clintons have always escaped accountability for their actions. Courts can find perjury and prosecutors can find classified material without a criminal charge. Evidence can suddenly surface after investigations, or thousands of emails can be destroyed without any repercussions.
After that history, it is little surprise that the Clintons would believe that they, unlike other Americans, can choose whether to comply with a subpoena. After standing in flagrant contempt, the Clintons only reaffirmed the sense of entitlement by offering to allow an interview in New York without a transcript. There would be no “what the meaning of ‘is’ is” moments.
It is a demonstration of our partisan times that the mere fact that Democrats joined in the motion came as a surprise to many.
Well, maybe, but the surprise is that any Democrats bothered to hold the Clintons accountable at all. That's not just an artifact of "our partisan times," at least in the acute moment. Democrats insisted in 1992 that Bill's marital cheating had nothing to do with presidential character, and then five years later, insisted that perjury and obstruction of justice were no reasons to remove an impeached president. "It's just sex," they claimed at the time, even though Bill Clinton lied to obstruct a sexual harassment claim by Paula Jones, while at the same time, it emerged that Clinton had preyed upon a besotted Monica Lewinsky for sexual gratification literally in the Oval Office. And that was at the same time that feminists were advancing sexual-harassment and power-imbalance issues into workplace regulations that apply to this day.
One might even call those critical points in producing our current "partisan times." It's on the same arc that has produced no end of hypocrisy in all directions over the Epstein Files, lawfare, and so on.
Anyway. What happens now? Presumably, these same nine Democrats (Bill) and three Democrats (Hillary) will vote to uphold the contempt referrals when the full House votes on them in the next few days. Even if they don't, Republicans can certify them on party-line votes. When that happens, the Department of Justice will follow the precedent set by Merrick Garland with Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro and prosecute the Clintons for contempt, which might well result in jail time, although with the security complications around fromer presidents, an extended house arrest will be more likely.
At this point, though, the Clintons know they are political corpses. And they also know their own party just wished them back into the graveyard as the Epstein Files monkey's paw twisted in their hands. That may be justice delayed, but justice nonetheless.
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