The left, mainstream media, pundits and almost every poll were certain Hillary Clinton was going to win the election. Ultimately, a “Chinese monkey king” ended up doing a better job predicting the election results than the experts. What did they miss, and why did they miss it? Why did so many voters desert Clinton and vote for Trump?

Many on the left cling to the idea that Clinton lost due to voter suppression of minority voters — despite the millions George Soros funneled into organizations to combat this allegation from occurring. A writer for Salon wrote a lengthy piece rambling on and on about how the GOP kept minorities from voting, but without any direct evidence that this had happened. The logic in this article and others is: The Democrat should get the most minority votes; Clinton got fewer votes from minorities than she should have gotten; therefore someone must be keeping minorities from voting for Clinton.

But that isn’t the reason.

Why Trump? Why Not Clinton?

First, the mainstream assumed that Trump was a racist and that he would draw an even lower percent of black and Latino voters than Republicans usually get. In fact, a larger share of blacks, Latinos and Asian-Americans voted for Trump than had voted for Romney. The only Republican candidate to do better with those three groups was George W. Bush in his first election in 2000 and his reelection in 2004.

Revealingly, Trump received about the same share of the white vote than Romney did four years ago, yet it now appears he received about the same or slightly fewer votes than Romney did then.

Second, exit polls reveal that key Democratic constituencies failed to show up to vote for Clinton. She received fewer votes from blacks, Latinos, Asians, Millennials and lower income voters than nearly every observer expected. Younger blacks didn’t think Clinton indicated enough support for Black Lives Matter or criminal justice reforms. Additionally, she didn’t have the star power Obama had as the first black president.

For example, Clinton lost some of the traditional support for Democratic candidates from lower middle class and working class voters. Only 52 percent of voters making $50,000 or less annually voted for her, down from 60 percent for Obama. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) recognized during the race that Clinton was in trouble in Michigan. She observed that middle class voters were discouraged that their economic situation had gotten worse, not better, under Obama.

Similarly, millennials were disgruntled by Clinton’s lack of ethics, especially the way her campaign created the caricature of “Bernie Bros” as racist and sexist. They had favored Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary and disliked her ties to Wall Street and her interventionist foreign policy.

Some Millennials voted instead for third-party candidates, bolstering Libertarian Gary Johnson to 3 percent of the vote, an increase from his 1 percent in 2012. Johnson and the other third-party candidate, Green Party’s Jill Stein, took enough of the vote away from Clinton in four swing states to tip the race to Trump. Ironically, Clinton’s husband may have the won election as president in 1992 due to third-party candidate Ross Perot taking away votes from George H.W. Bush.

The Conclusion

The evidence suggests that a lot of minority voters accepted Trump’s message and broke away from the Democratic party. Enough voters in groups the Democrats expected to hold voted Republican to give the election — and the crucial battleground states — to Trump.

Ironically, part of Clinton’s problem is the narrative she and the left created about white racism. Clinton seems to have lost some of the black vote because she didn’t embrace the radical Black Lives Matter agenda enough. The left has manufactured such absurd levels of racist accusations that it’s backfiring on them, hurting Democrats who don’t breathlessly push the spin.

As long as the left ignores the real reasons Clinton lost, they can expect another loss in 2020. (For more from the author of “GOP Didn’t Need to Suppress Democratic Voters. A Lot of Them Deserted Hillary Clinton” please click HERE)

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Watching Hillary Clinton’s concession speech, I was struck by how serene she appeared to be. There was no bitterness, no veiled barbs at Donald Trump or his deplorables, no insults directed at average Americans, not even any harmless snark. This didn’t seem like the Clinton we’ve all come to know and love loathe. What was going on here?

I had fully expected Hillary’s surprise defeat at the hands of Trump to destroy her. To be denied something she has coveted for so long, in such a surprising way, at the very last minute, must have affected her in ways the rest of us can’t even imagine. I actually thought her health might be in danger. But then it occurred to me: What if she is feeling something completely different? What if this situation is more complex than it seems?

I’m currently rereading “The Lord of the Rings” for, if my count is accurate, the seventh time. With that story in my mind, it’s impossible for me not to draw parallels between the Ring of Power — the One Ring to Rule Them All — and the presidency. What if Hillary has been a slave to her ambition for the last 50 years, just as the creature Gollum became a slave to the ring and the power that came with it? For half a century, she has desperately been pursuing one thing, the presidency. And now, for the first time, it is clear that she will never have it. She is too old to run in four years. Hillary will never be president of the United States.

Gollum’s relationship with the ring was more complicated than mere desire. As Gandalf the wizard said, “He hates and loves the ring, as he hates and loves himself.” Maybe Hillary feels the same way about the presidency. As with all addictions, the object desired creates such disruption in the life of the addict she grows to despise the very thing she lusts after. When that object is destroyed, when all hope of obtaining it is lost, it can be a liberating experience. When the Ring of Power is destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom, all under its spell are set free.

When Hillary lost the primary to Barack Obama in 2008, publically bursting into tears, we all assumed she was feeling the sting of the loss. What if, instead, she was confronting the realization that she would have to do it all over again in eight years? Already in her 60s, she knew then that the next decade of her life would be consumed with campaigning, political maneuvering, and jockeying for position to the exclusion of all else. She had no choice; her uncontrollable ambition demanded it. It must have been exhausting, and you know what? I would have cried too.

Now it’s all over. She never has to campaign again. She can comfortably retire from public life and live out the remainder of her days as a grandmother, if she so chooses. Maybe Hillary’s acceptance that she can never achieve the dream that has haunted her all her life has brought her peace. The curse has been lifted, and she is free to move on.

Well, it’s only a theory, but it would make me happy if it were true. To be doomed to run for president again and again is not something I would wish on my worst enemy, and if Hillary has finally managed to escape that, I wish her peace. (For more from the author of “Hillary Clinton Has Been a Slave to Her Own Ambition. Now She’s Free” please click HERE)

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There is little doubt in the minds of the American public that Hillary Clinton probably broke a law. After all, she seems to have little reason to abide by it. In fact, she may be the first presidential candidate to be interviewed by the FBI as often as she is by the media.

More recently, the FBI has reopened the investigation into wrongdoing by Hillary and her aides after the FBI stumbled upon thousands of additional State Department emails that may have been improperly shared after investigating a separate incident involving disgraced former congressman (and estranged husband of Hillary’s closest aide, Huma Abedin) Anthony Weiner and his involvement with underage women.

Although the FBI has determined (perhaps politically) no wrongdoing by Clinton there either, it’s unlikely the illegal activity surrounding Hillary’s emails — and the fraudulent nature of the Clinton Foundation — will keep her off the radar of law enforcement.

Yet, if Hillary is elected as some polls suggest, the bigger question on the minds of so many Americans is what happens if Hillary did break the law? Can she be indicted? Can she go to jail? Can she pardon herself? To get answers, I sat down with one of the most informed individuals on such matters, Bruce Fein, constitutional scholar and former associate deputy attorney general under President Reagan.

Q & A with Bruce Fein

JG: Could “President Hillary Clinton” be indicted if law enforcement concludes she broke the law?

BF: This question was litigated during the Nixon/Watergate era. The courts concluded that a sitting president, unlike a member of Congress or a judge, could not be indicted. Since the president is the executive of an entire branch of the government, it would effectively shut that branch down. It would be in direct conflict with the Constitution.

However, like they did with President Nixon, Congress has the ability to impeach a president, and if they do so successfully, then the president can then be indicted.

That being said, it would be nearly impossible for the Justice Department to indict a president. Since the president has the authority to fire any individual in the executive branch without cause, any U.S. attorney willing to indict a President Hillary Clinton would immediately be fired. The case would never make it to a grand jury. A grand jury can’t indict an individual unless it is signed by the U.S. attorney. Even today, the secretive grand jury process is often ignored by the U.S. attorney’s office for much lesser political reasons. That is one reason the first action by any new president is to fire most of the U.S. attorneys and replace them with their own. When I was with Reagan, we fired most of the U.S. attorneys under President Carter.

JG: If President Clinton were indicted before the election, could she pardon herself as president?

BF: President Obama would never allow Clinton to be indicted. He wouldn’t risk destroying the Democratic Party over an indictment. Even then, Clinton’s indictment would simply be dismissed by the U.S. attorney’s office as soon as she became president.

JG: What are the steps to creating a special prosecutor?

BF: There are two ways:

One, is by congressional enactment, or an independent counsel statute — which Congress allowed to expire in 2000. That statute provided for three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals here to appoint an independent counsel that runs their own criminal investigation using the FBI and traditional resources that don’t report to the attorney general in cases of clear conflict of interest where the target of the investigation is the president, the upper echelon of his cabinet, or head honchos within a party.

The independent counsels have the right to stay and investigate as long as they wish. Kenneth Star [who investigated President Bill Clinton] was an independent counsel, Congress appropriates money for them; they are the ones who decide to challenge executive privilege and that sort.

The other way to do this, assuming Clinton became president, is by regulation. This was done during Watergate. At that time, there was a vacancy at the attorney general’s office, so the Senate Judiciary Committee told the new nominee, Elliot Richardson, that he was not to be confirmed unless he agreed to various regulations. Those regulations required Richardson to establish a special prosecutor; it had to be Archibald Cox, and he had to have a special jurisdiction. Otherwise, you’re not going to be confirmed. So, he said ok.

That process could happen under a Clinton presidency, too.

JG: So, in Clinton’s case, it would really be up to Congress to establish a special prosecutor?

BF: Yes. Congress can establish a special prosecutor that can hold grand juries, report to the judicial branch, and even, be called before Congress to testify. They are just like the U.S. attorney’s office except they can’t be fired by the president.

JG: The special prosecutor can go after anyone around the president, but not presidents themselves since they are immune from indictment?

BF: No, the special prosecutor can certainly go after the president. Except, instead of indictment, any facts established in the investigation of the president can be used by the House of Representatives in an impeachment proceeding.

JG: Given your knowledge of impeachments, what do you think might happen to Clinton?

BF: Well, unless there is an independent counsel or special prosecutor, nothing is going to happen. It’s possible that some of the aides around Clinton get indicted. If there is a special prosecutor, I would imagine that would make its way to being considered by the House of Representatives.

Now, there is another argument some make about impeachment. Clinton could say that she broke the law as the secretary of State, but impeachable offenses are only actions undertaken while being president.

That argument would have to be voted on by the House, but I don’t think it’s a persuasive argument. Impeachment is like a preventive measure — it’s simply a statement that we just don’t trust this person with the reins of government, showing past behavior.

JG: Given your experience working on the impeachment proceedings against President Nixon, do you think Clinton’s actions warrant investigation by a special prosecutor if she becomes president?

BF: I don’t think the level and pervasiveness of wrongdoing that we expect of Clinton was on the level of Nixon. In part, she was secretary of State, but presidents can do everything, and President Nixon was doing everything. He was ordering the IRS to do stuff, breaking into offices, threatening the TV and radio licenses of media organizations if they were critical of him.

However, the most disturbing things about Clinton are that she placed herself above the law, very recklessly. She was secretary of State, and she had information that belonged to the government. The public confidence in the administration of justice is at its zenith at these highest levels. Moreover, we’re speaking about someone who was in the White House for eight years, has been through impeachment once with her husband, she was in the Senate for eight years, so she knows better. Yet she treated the whole thing with disdain.

When Alexander Hamilton was explaining what the nature of an impeachable offense was in Federalist Paper 65, he said it wasn’t necessarily a crime, but a crime against the Constitution — a crime against society because you shake confidence in justice and fairness. That is what Hillary Clinton has done.

JG: If you were to advise Congress on how to handle potential crimes committed by Hillary Clinton, if she became president, what would you tell them?

BF: I would suggest Congress immediately start having hearings on a proposed Article of Impeachment. It should be Congress that conducts the investigation. It’s their responsibility. The reason why Watergate worked is because Congress did their own investigation, and it was on TV, and the American people could see it.

All the grand jury stuff is secret. And one of the reasons why, in my judgement, the Bill Clinton impeachment failed is because all the really serious parts of the investigation were all secret. All the American people heard was Kenneth Star sitting and reading a piece of paper.

The House of Representatives has all the investigatory tools that the U.S. attorneys have: They can issue subpoenas, issue depositions; they can investigate it all in secret (via Executive Session) if they choose, they can issue immunity grants through the courts — and do all this investigation on their own that would allow them to come to their own conclusion whether to impeach Clinton or not.

JG: Do you think Clinton’s actions warrant Congress to take these steps?

BF: I’m not in favor of impeachment for the sake of impeachment. I’m in favor of impeachment in order to maintain the integrity of the principle of law. What persuades me to this conclusion isn’t to downplay the magnitude of the wrong. It’s that we do not give conclusive weight — but very strong presumptive weight — to the majority vote.

If she wins the election, we’ll need to have a very high threshold of wrongdoing to effectively overturn a popularly elected president — especially since these were acts committed before the American people voted, and when most of us knew what was going on but still elected her. (For more from the author of “What Can We Do to Indict Hillary Clinton, One of the Most Corrupt Politicians in History?” please click HERE)

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