Hillary Clinton’s team is spooked all right — but it has nothing to do with Halloween. Friday’s announcement that the FBI was reopening the investigation into Hillary’s private email server has rocked the political world — or at least part of it. The reality that the Democratic nominee could be indicted is not so much a dilemma for the Left as it for some on the Right. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that this new evidence of Hillary’s corruption will impact her liberal support, since most of those voters have supported President Obama’s lawless administration for the last eight years. The greatest impact could be on conservatives who are either sitting on the sidelines or agitating against Donald Trump. Those conservatives are now squarely confronted with an uncomfortable reality: that their hand-wringing objections could facilitate the election of the Queen of Corruption.

This latest political bombshell comes courtesy of Anthony Weiner, whose obsession with sex may ironically be the downfall of both him and the Democratic nominee. FBI Director James Comey stunned the nation with the news that agents had found more than 650,000 emails on Weiner’s laptop from his wife (and top Hillary aide) Huma Abedin — sent “to or from the private server” that Secretary Clinton used at the State Department. In a race that most acknowledge is tighter than polls give it credit for, the revelation is sending shockwaves through the electorate. For Comey, who must have known the announcement would put him in the bullseye of Clinton’s powerful apologists, the timing was irrelevant. “That he announced this so close to Election Day should tell every thinking person that what the FBI is looking at is extremely serious,” writes John Kass.

As insiders have said all along, the scandal is significant — not just for Clinton, but for the entire Obama administration, whose corrupt Department of Justice has been trying to shut down the probe since the emails first came to light. As recently as August, DOJ officials were furious that agents were pursuing leads on the “pay-to-play” conflict between the Clinton Foundation and political leaders in the U.S. and abroad. In a jaw-dropping account of the internal feud between Obama’s operatives and the FBI’s earnest fact-seekers, The Wall Street Journal explains the depth of the conspiracy to protect Clinton.

“According to a person familiar with the probes, on Aug. 12, a senior Justice Department official called Mr. McCabe to voice his displeasure at finding that New York FBI agents were still openly pursuing the Clinton Foundation probe during the election season. ‘Are you telling me that I need to shut down a validly predicated investigation?’ the FBI’s second-in-command asked. After a pause, the official replied, ‘Of course not,’ these people said… Others further down the FBI chain of command, however, said agents were given a much starker instruction on the case: ‘Stand down.’”

Of course, none of this seems to matter to Hillary’s Senate pals, who insist that the person who’s done wrong is not their candidate — but Comey! In remarks that would be comical if they didn’t reveal such contempt for the truth, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) fired off a letter insisting that the FBI Director is the one mishandling “sensitive information.” “Through your partisan actions,” Reid argues, “you may have broken the law.” Fortunately, Reid’s rampage isn’t shared by many. The case against Hillary is so compelling that even staunch liberals at the Chicago Tribune are calling on Clinton to withdraw.

“As secretary of state she kept classified documents on the home-brew server in her basement, which is against the law. She lied about it to the American people. She couldn’t remember details dozens of times when questioned by the FBI. Her aides destroyed evidence by BleachBit and hammers. Her husband, Bill, met secretly on an airport tarmac with Attorney General Loretta Lynch for about a half-hour, and all they said they talked about was golf and the grandkids. And there was no prosecution of Hillary. That isn’t merely wrong and unethical. It is poisonous. And during this presidential campaign, Americans were confronted with a two-tiered system of federal justice: one for standards for the Clintons and one for the peasants.”

What if Hillary is elected, Kass goes on? “Think of a nation suffering a bad economy and continuing chaos in the Middle East, and now also facing a criminal investigation of a president. Add to that congressional investigations and a public vision of Clinton as a Nixonian figure wandering the halls, wringing her hands.”

That possibility is obviously weighing heavily on most Americans’ minds, as Hillary’s poll numbers took a huge tumble over the weekend. ABC’s surveys, which had Clinton up 12 points just a week ago, now have her just one point ahead. In the battleground states, where even the slightest change could have national implications, Axiom & Remington Research group show a much more competitive race, with Donald Trump carving into what many believed were insurmountable Hillary leads.

Nationwide, 34 percent say they’re less likely to vote for Clinton now that FBI is renewing its investigation. Like us, they don’t think we should turn over the keys to our country to someone whose license should have been suspended months ago. As someone who has been reckless with American lives and American secrets, she shouldn’t have access to classified documents ever again — let alone be put in charge of them as president! Yet still, liberals like Harry Reid continue to operate outside of the standards they impose on others. And unfortunately, we’ve seen what lawlessness in our leadership results in: chaos in our communities. We’ve seen it for the last eight years. America cannot tolerate another administration that will sweep this corruption to the side or increase it. This Halloween, the mask of Hillary Clinton is slipping. It’s time for the nation to come together, and with their ballots, demand better.

For more on the controversy, check out my interview on Fox’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”

Originally published here.

Rainbow Blight: Obama’s LGBT Legacy

Late last week, NBC News posted an interesting column centered on the “quiet” mission of Obama’s gay foreign policy. My only question is: What’s quiet about it? Americans have watched an almost eight-year parade of LGBT activism from the rainbow flags at U.S. embassies to global bullying on homosexuality. During her time in the administration, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the Grand Marshall of the celebration, declaring to the world that “gay rights are human rights.”

And now, two terms into that overseas mission, those “human rights” are profoundly trumping human needs. In a sweeping decision last week, the administration announced a new rule that puts faith-based aid groups in the crosshairs of the far-Left’s crusade for genderless bathrooms, showers and other facilities. National Security Advisor Susan Rice cheered the move in a speech at American University. Insisting that “the United States also needs to do more to institutionalize efforts to promote LGBT rights,” she explained that her office is doing its part to reverse what she called the “backwards” environment the administration inherited in 2009. (By “backwards,” I assume she means one that respects the First Amendment rights enshrined in the Constitution.) “As part of that commitment, I’m pleased to note that just yesterday, a new rule went into effect that explicitly prohibits discrimination by USAID contractors. This rule means that any organization that contracts with USAID must ensure that all people can benefit from its federally-funded programs, regardless of … sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Translation: Any organization with moral objections to the president’s LGBT agenda will be ineligible for government aid contracts. Groups like Catholic Charities, for instance, which offer international help to the poor, homeless, diseased and hungry, would be stripped of their government partnerships. Taking this to its logical conclusion, “Disaster relief agencies may now be required to open their women’s shower and sleeping facilities to biological males who self-identify as women or be stripped of all federal funding for alleged ‘gender identity discrimination,’” bemoans the Heritage Foundation’s Roger Severino.

Rice (whose tenure has been marked by plenty of controversy) insists that this is a “major step toward ensuring that American assistance is provided in a fair and equitable manner.” On the contrary, this is ensuring that the world’s neediest are deprived of some of the most effective, efficient and compassionate care in the world. No government — not even America’s — can fill the void of the hundreds of social services provided around the world by the church. And now, the Obama administration is willing to sacrifice America’s tradition of humanitarianism — and the well-being of millions — on a ridiculous altar of gender confusion? If you’re looking for the definition of religious hostility, this is it!

Originally published here.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.