Clinton’s Scandal Guarantee

The DNC leak is proving to be the gift that keeps on giving, and combined with the announcement of a new IRS investigation into wrongdoings at the Clinton Foundation, Clinton’s campaign is all but guaranteed to be mired in scandal until Election Day.

There will be no getting past the email server scandal for Clinton. Like hurricanes in late summer and early fall, the question now is not if new Clinton scandals will blow onto the 2016 scene — but where.

“There’s a limit to how much scandal a politician can successfully tow around — even if that politician is a Clinton.”

Last Friday emails were released that indicated clearly an effort by those in the DNC to undermine Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign in favor of Clinton.

Then, just when the Clinton campaign believed it had weathered the storm relatively unscathed — no thanks to directing all focus to Russian involvement, as if the fact that Russian hackers stole the information somehow makes the stolen information false — audio files were discovered among the leaks that further disgraced the Democratic National Committee.

The controversial content in the audio files largely consists of ultra-wealthy, white Democrat donors either complaining about not getting the access to high level Democratic politicians they feel they deserved due to their campaign contributions, or Sanders.

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“I’m furious about what you are doing for Bernie Sanders. He’s getting way too much influence,” said one irate woman. “I will leave the Democratic Party if the Democratic Party continues to coddle Bernie Sanders. Get rid of the a**hole,” she continued.

The WikiLeaks DNC leak shows no signs of stopping either. “One big question to be answered between now and Election Day is ‘what else will Wikileaks release?'” said Eddie Zipperer, a political science professor at Georgia College. “Julian Assange claims he has lots more. If that’s true, Clinton is in very big trouble.”

As if the continued drama for the DNC weren’t bad enough for Clinton’s campaign, on Tuesday it was reported that the IRS is investigating corruption at the Clinton Foundation.

The investigation comes after 64 House Republicans requested that the IRS, FBI, and Federal Trade Commission investigate the “lawless” foundation for “public corruption.” The request referred to the foundation as a “lawless ‘pay-to-play’ enterprise that has been operating under a cloak of philanthropy for years and should be investigated.”

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The House Republicans who requested the investigation identified foundation dealings with Laureate Education and Uranium One as two examples that suggest corruption. In both cases, these companies donated vast sums of money to the Clinton Foundation, and shortly thereafter found themselves receiving benefits courtesy of the U.S. government and Hillary’s State Department.

While this certainly looks bad for Clinton, the IRS investigation (unlike the WikiLeaks scandal) will only be as much of a threat to Clinton as the IRS makes it, and it’s doubtful they will put much effort into proving the Clintons committed any sort of wrongdoing. “I’d be shocked if any sort of real investigation happens,” Zipperer said.

“I fully expect them to ask Hillary if the Clinton Foundation has done anything wrong and then take her at her word,” he continued. “This is, after all, the IRS that targeted conservative groups. They weren’t willing to hold Lois Lerner accountable, so the idea that they would hold Hillary Clinton accountable for anything is almost unimaginable.”

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Clinton will likely also have to face further questioning about her private email server. While the scandal that once promised to end Clinton’s primary campaign and possibly send her to prison “may have disappeared from the 24-hour news cycle for now … it’s not gone. It’s just dormant,” Zipperer said.

“It’s far too serious an issue to disappear,” he continued. “She’s going to have to answer for it. Even if she never holds another press conference, when the debates roll around, she’s going to have to explain why she lied about the classified material on her email server for a year.”

The cloud of the server scandal that still hangs over Clinton’s head, the WikiLeaks DNC hack holding the promise of continued continued controversy, and the federal investigation into public corruption at her family’s foundation could all end up being devastating to the Clinton campaign.

It’s one thing to campaign with scandalous skeletons in the closet, but to conduct a campaign to the constant drumbeat of new scandal is another thing entirely. The Clinton camp likely planned an offensive campaign against Donald Trump — but instead it’s starting to find itself in a prolonged defense of its own candidate.

“There’s a limit to how much scandal a politician can successfully tow around — even if that politician is a Clinton,” Zipperer said.