Clinton Concessions: Change We Can Parse

The Politico is reporting the details of concessions to be made by former President Bill Clinton if Hillary Clinton is nominated and confirmed as Secretary of State. As we reported earlier, we believe that Senator Clinton is prohibited from holding this office or any other civil office based on Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution:

No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time;

Of course I would expect when questioned the Clinton/Obama line of defense would be that Hillary is a woman and therefore not literally a he, or that emoluments are no longer provided for holders of civil offices. On the other hand, respect for the constitution being what it is, the mere prohibition of appointment should not prove an obstacle.

In any case a 'concession' wrested from former President Clinton is reported to center around releasing the list of donors to the Clinton Global Initiative Foundation. That would not, for instance, include the amounts of the donations, just the list of donors. it would also not list any quid-pro-quo involved, and not involve donations to the Clinton Presidential Library.

Another concession would be that former President Clinton would not solicit sponsorship contributions to the CGI. I would interpret to mean that he would not do so personally, that they would continue under the name of someone else, and he would still be able to speak to potential donors as long as he did not use the word solicit when seeking donations.

A Cabinet position for Hillary Clinton would start the Obama administration off with both a direct, substantive and unresolvable violation of the constitution and with an ethical challenge large enough to drive multi-million dollar bribes through with ease. Change we can parse.