Over the weekend, Chertoff — the former secretary of Homeland Security — told me his decision came down to national security. “I realized we spent a huge amount of time in the ’90s on issues that were much less important than what was brewing in terms of terrorism,” he said. For Chertoff, Clinton “has good judgment and a strategic vision how to deal with the threats that face us.”
Whitewater has not come up much in this election season. But it was the Benghazi of the 1990s. Just as the Benghazi investigation begat a Congressional probe into Clinton’s e-mail server, the Whitewater investigation led Congress to President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. So it’s significant that an investigator from that era is now in Hillary Clinton’s corner.
“People can go back decades and perhaps criticize some of the judgments that were made,” Chertoff said. “That is very, very insignificant compared to the fundamental issue of how to protect the country.”
Just as Chertoff does not think Clinton’s dodgy friendships from her Arkansas days disqualify her from the presidency, he says the same thing about Clinton’s use of a private e-mail system. It was a mistake, he said, but “she did not intentionally endanger national security.”
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