Leslie Rutledge, Arkansas A.G.: Hillary's worst nightmare?
The blog for the Arkansas Times is reporting that our attorney general, Leslie Rutledge, is in New York meeting with Trump transition planners. Rutledge, a diminutive fireball conservative elected two years ago, is quoted:
"My interest is in helping the Trump administration," Rutledge told reporters as she arrived for meetings at Trump Tower in New York. "Whether that's continuing on as the attorney general of Arkansas or (working) in the administration, then my ears are open."
It's the first of those two options, "staying on in Arkansas," that sets my antennae tingling for the simple reason that Rutledge is one of two state attorneys general in the country who have undisputed standing to investigate the Clinton Foundation. The other state is New York, but their thoroughly politicized Democrat attorney general would never lift a hand against the Clintons, no matter how outrageous their corruption. Both A.G.s have standing by virtue of the physical location of Clinton Foundation offices within their borders.
Rutledge could do a great service for both her own considerable political ambitions and the Trump administration by accepting the Trump's Justice Department's help on the hot-potato investigation and prosecution of Clinton Foundation corruption. Trump could quietly lend Rutledge's own limited investigatory resources the far greater capabilities of federal agencies to build a lock-tight racketeering case against the Clintons and then quietly fade from the scene before Rutledge (soon to become the world's most famous state attorney general and a household name) announces the indictments.
Think about it for a moment: Trump could mollify those demanding his promised Clinton investigation by saying it is ongoing and that as president and chief judicial officer, he cannot comment further, all while having his Justice Department and the FBI quietly continue their own investigations into Clinton's obvious security violations. But, and it's a big but, by receding into the background, Trump could fade the heat from angry Democrats that he is persecuting his political opponents. And if Rutledge brought in some quick convictions or plea deals from some of the lower-hanging fruit on the foundation staff, all eyes would be on her from that point on until she could either indict or, in a highly unlikely move, clear the Clintons.
If Rutledge were to gain convictions against the Clintons, most of the bloodlust on the right would likely be sated with even minimal state sentences. Moreover, Trump would have fulfilled his vow, through a state surrogate, to prosecute Crooked Hillary, and A.G. Rutledge would be world-famous, likely the federal attorney general in a second Trump term, then Arkansas governor, senator, U.S. Supreme Court...who knows where that kind of fame, the woman who nailed the Clintons, could take her? And wouldn't it be so fitting that the Clintons should get their comeuppance back here in Arkansas, where their decades-long career of corruption began?
Anyone think perhaps Donald's thinking the same way I am?