About a month ago, Hillary Clinton was in Chicago promoting her book, and in reference to some of her conservative critics, the former Secretary of State joked, “It appears they don’t know I’m not president.”
To borrow a Homer Simpson line, it’s funny because it’s true.
FBI Director Christopher Wray was on Capitol Hill yesterday, participating in a House Judiciary Committee hearing in which Clinton’s name came up 76 times. That’s quite a bit given that she’s a private citizen who hasn’t held public office in five years and who’ll never run for anything again
Perhaps the most amusing moment of the hearing came when Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas) shared this thought with Wray.
“Director, thank you for being here. And I know this has been touched on a couple of times, and I just want to reiterate something that I hear regularly from my constituents in South Texas. And that’s a concern, we have a special counsel investigating the Trump administration, but it seems like no one is addressing the Clinton administration.
“I know the chairman touched on this, as do — did some of the other questions. And I really don’t have a question here, other than to reiterate that it is a pretty strong concern of a lot of the folks that I represent.”
Farenthold should probably let the folks he represents know that there is no Clinton administration. The Democratic nominee may have received more votes than Donald Trump, but he’s nevertheless the one in office.
Now, in all fairness, it’s likely Farenthold just misspoke, which is something that everyone does from time to time. He probably meant to refer to Clinton’s tenure at the State Department, which is foolish on a substantive level — there are no credible allegations of wrongdoing — but which at least existed in reality. But what’s funny is how often this mistake comes up. One former Trump aide in late October called for increased scrutiny of Hillary Clinton’s administration, which, again, does not exist. Two days later, another Trump ally in conservative media referred to “President Clinton” – and he was referring to Hillary, not Bill. As we discussed a while back, “It appears they don’t know I’m not president” is a phrase with surprisingly broad applicability.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past." Recommended
