Last week, former President Barack Obama claimed his eight years in the Oval Office were “scandal free.” The remarks seemed, charitably, one part Clintonian (depends on what “scandal” and “free” mean) and another part delusional.

Today, the strategy of getting captured corporate media to repeat unvetted wishful thinking falls flat because Americans like the quick work President Donald Trump has made of reigniting growth in after-tax paychecks. More of us question Obama’s success fables spun during eight long years, too. We want and deserve answers to tough questions.

What actually happened during the Obama presidency? The deep and intertwined extent to which loyalists of Bill and Hillary Clinton were immediately inserted into the Obama administration after the 2008 presidential election has never been fully exposed or adequately explained.

Considering that Barack Obama trounced Hillary Clinton during a well-managed upstart campaign that was, indeed, relatively scandal-free, one wonders why so many key posts in America’s first black presidency went to Clintonistas, especially including the exceptionally visible Cabinet role of secretary of state.

The “official” story concerning president-elect Barack Obama’s selection of Hillary Clinton for secretary of state — the one set forth in Hillary’s “Hard Choices” memoir — never rang true.

Accommodations between bitter political rivals seldom occur by accident. Obama’s forgiving of the Clintons, his continuing support for their deeply troubled “charity,” the extensive overt help by his administration for her second presidential campaign, and Obama’s support for resistance to the Trump administration seem tough to reconcile with the tenor of the 2008 Democratic Party primary season.

Unlike the 2016 Democratic primaries, which were stacked in favor of Clinton, the 2008 Democratic primaries were a slugfest, during which she was daily figuratively battered in the media and elsewhere in the political world.

Appointing a wounded warrior to serve as your chief international emissary, as America and the rest of the world climbed out of global economic conflagration, seems now in retrospect a risky move. What really happened?

Untapped roots for justified rage? The contest between putative front-runner Clinton and upstart Obama in the 2008 Democratic Party primaries was heated. Who can forget Bill Clinton’s dismissive and hurtful comments, especially when he sought support from elder “statesman” Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.)?

Shortly thereafter, an understanding may have been reached in early June 2008 between Obama and Hillary Clinton at the Washington, D.C., residence of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

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But by late July 2008, Obama partisans must have been livid to see Barack and Michelle depicted as armed Islamic terrorists inside the Oval Office on the cover of The New Yorker magazine, inflaming passions shortly before the Democratic National Convention and giving grist to Republican campaign efforts.

Yes, the Clintons eventually towed the line and lent their support — contacts, time and money — to help Obama win his historic election victory over Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

But we have yet to learn the real story — one that explains why, for example, so many Obama appointees would allow Hillary Clinton to mishandle classified information, while also letting the Clinton Foundation run riot soliciting billions of dollars (including affiliates) in contributions for patently unauthorized causes, and flouting so many strict laws in the process.

All we got was the worst that Chicago machine politics affords us, with heavy doses of Little Rock and Tammany Hall corruption laced into the stew, all for bad measure.

So, we wonder, what leverage did Team Clinton have on Team Obama as the lame duck George W. Bush Justice Department and the Robert Mueller-led FBI focused on corruption cases involving political figures in Illinois prior to Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 2009?

Michael Horowitz has an appointment with destiny. At last, the period from Election eve, Nov. 4, 2008, forward is finally getting unpacked. Long-suppressed evidence flows out to the public. Soon, patriots of all political persuasions will understand just how close Americans came to embracing a tainted tyranny of supposed good intentions as the Obama administration almost succeeded — like her or not — in making Clinton president.

Unfortunately for co-conspirators in the Establishment wings of both political parties, Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz has been examining evidence of numerous scandals during and after the Obama presidency and is sharing his team’s analysis with the appropriate government authorities.

Related: Truth About the Clinton Foundation Is Finally Being Exposed

If Horowitz is as thorough as he should be, Americans including somnolent mainstream “journalists” will finally get wake-up calls that long have been overdue.

From 2009 forward, we paid trillions of dollars expecting inspired, forward-thinking federal government in return, but all we got was the worst that Chicago machine politics affords us, with heavy doses of Little Rock and Tammany Hall corruption laced into the stew, all for bad measure.

To be continued.

Charles Ortel, a retired investment banker, concentrates on exposing complex frauds in his new career as an investigator, writer and commentator. Since August 2017, he has been hosting the “Sunday with Charles” podcast and covering the Clinton Foundation case in depth, using publicly available source materials.​

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