What will Hillary Clinton do next? – The Week UK
News that at least 65 Democrat senators and members of Congress are planning to boycott Donald Trump's inauguration today has led some to wonder whether the new president's defeated rival will be among those skipping the festivities.
However, in what The Guardian calls a "Shakespearean twist", Hillary Clinton will brave the world's news cameras to appear at the inauguration alongside her husband Bill and witness her Republican opponent become 45th president of the United States.
While presumably painful to both her supporters and the politician herself, Clinton's attendance is in keeping with the tradition that living ex-presidents and their spouses attend the ceremony, ABC News reports.
Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter and George W Bush will also be in Washington DC to witness the swearing-in of the least popular president-elect in US history.
"Hillary Clinton will join former vice president Al Gore in the depressing position of being in the crowd when an opponent who got fewer votes takes the oath of office," reports NBC affiliate WSFA. However, Democratic Party consultant Robert Shrum told the Guardian the former presidential hopeful can be relied upon to maintain her composure.
He said: "It has to be an emotionally difficult day, but she wont give any outward sign. She will have a stiff upper lip."
In her concession speech, Clinton urged her supporters not to grow weary or lose heart "for there are more seasons to come and there is more work to do".
But what exactly might that entail?
A senior campaign worker told People magazine that Clinton "really didn't contemplate losing" the election and suggested that "no one around the campaign really seems to know what Hillary will do next".
Although she lost the election, Clinton won the popular vote by 2.6 million, according to the latest figures at the Cook Political Report.
If Clinton were to run again and win in 2020 at the age of 73 she would become the oldest person elected to a first term, although Trump will be 74 by then. Nevertheless, as a member of Democratic royalty, she could wield considerable influence as an "elder stateswoman" within the party.
In a tongue-in-cheek interview with Zach Galifianakis in September, she said if Trump won she would "try to prevent him from destroying the United States". However, she could well pursue non-political routes to achieve this.
Romper suggests that Clinton could "dedicate more time and energy by returning to the Clinton Foundation", the charity which she and husband Bill established 19 years ago. This would enable her to continue working for the causes she is most passionate about, such as women's rights.
She might also consider writing an autobiography, hoping to emulate the success of her husband's 2004 memoir, My Life, a mammoth bestseller that shifted more than two million copies.
She has already written one autobiography, 2003's Living History, but as a sitting senator for New York with her eye on the White House, the juiciest titbits of her political and personal life would have been off limits.
After 30 years in the public eye, from the low of the sex scandal that almost led to her husband's impeachment to the high of being named Democratic presidential candidate, Clinton must have more than a few tales to tell. A frank autobiography could offer a fascinating insight into a woman often depicted as reserved and cold.
But she might also simply decide to step away from life in the public eye and enjoy retirement. Her daughter, Chelsea, and son-in-law, Mark, have two young children of their own and Clinton has previously spoken of her delight in being a grandmother to two-year-old Charlotte and six-month-old Aidan.
They were also part of her concession speech, when she thanked her family for all their support during the campaign. "To Bill and Chelsea, Mark, Charlotte, Aidan, our brothers and our entire family, my love for you means more than I can ever express," she said. "You criss-crossed this country on our behalf and lifted me up when I needed it most."
28 November
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are embroiled in another row about the US election, this time over Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein's decision to request a full recount of the Wisconsin vote.
Stein also wants recounts in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
In theory, the next presidency of the United States. If reversed, the results would push Clinton ahead of Trump in the Electoral College.
The three states in question are all swing states. In Wisconsin, Trump beat Clinton by 22,257 votes, but the winner-takes-all system gave the Republican candidate all ten Electoral College votes. In Michigan, with 16 Electoral College votes, the margin was even closer, with Trump polling just 11,612 ahead. The largest of the contested states, Pennsylvania, saw Trump secure a 68,236 advantage giving him 20 Electoral College votes.
If Clinton were to win those 46 Electoral Colleges, it would bring her total to 278 above the 270 limit required to win the election.
It's highly unlikely. Recounts typically do not swing enough votes to change the winner, says polling websiteFiveThirtyEight.
Out of 4,687 state-wide general elections between 2000 and 2015, 27 were followed by recounts and only three of those resulted in a change in the outcome, it says. Crucially, recounts tend not to change the margin by an amount that would be large enough to affect the result of this year's presidential election. The mean, or average, swing between the top two candidates in the 27 recounts was just 282 votes. In Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, Trump's lead was more than 10,000.
Marc Elias, the Clinton team's general counsel, announced on the blog platformMediumon Saturday they intended to participate "in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides".
But they were not planning to exercise the recount option until Stein's intervention. The Green Party candidate alleged foreign hackers might have skewed the result in Wisconsin by filing bogus absentee ballots. Elias said that, although the 2016 election was "unique in the degree of foreign interference witnessed", the Clinton camp had not uncovered "any actionable evidence" of vote-rigging.
A statement from the Obama administration to theNew York Timessaid it too had concluded that the election was free from interference. Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders, who was beaten by Clinton to the Democratic nomination, told CNN he supported the legal right to request a recount but suggested Clinton did not believe it would change the result.
23 November
Two weeks ago, the US chose Donald Trump as its next president, despite widespread expectation that Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton was about to become the country's first female commander-in-chief.
Trump doesn't take office until January but is already meeting world leaders and choosing his White House team.
However, Clinton actually won the popular vote, so is there still a chance she could be the next president of the United States?
Only partly. The presidential election really works state by state, with voters in each one choosing electors. They are members of the Electoral College and will vote in January for the president. After that, the chosen candidate is sworn in.
In theory, they might not. The candidate who wins the most votes in a state should receive all of its electoral votes (except inMaine and Nebraska, wheredistricts can choose different candidates).More populous states have more electors, smaller states have fewer.
While there is no constitutional provision or federal law requiring electors to vote according to the popular vote, some are bound by state law or by pledges to their political parties to cast their ballot in a particular way.
"Although an elector could, in principle, change his or her vote (and a few actually have over the years), doing so is rare," says USA Today.
However, this year, two electors are campaigning to encourage others to vote against Trump, despite the result in their state.P Bret Chiafolo, of Washington, and Michael Baca, of Colorado, have been phoning their colleagues and trying to talk them into joining a group they have dubbed "Moral Electors''.
While this might sound like good news for Democrats, Baca and Chiafalo are "not pushing for Republican electors to all switch their allegiance to Clinton", says The Atlantic. "Instead, they suggest a 'compromise candidate' - a Republican they find less objectionable than Trump, such as former Republican nominee Mitt Romney or Ohio Governor John Kasich. (Though those options are just placeholders; they said it should be up to the Republican electors to pick a new standard-bearer.)"
Chiafolo has admitted it is a "long shot", while the New York Daily News says so-called "faithless electors" are "extraordinarily rare".
The election with the most faithless electors occurred in 1808, when six voted against the popular vote in their states. Dozens would need to do so to block Trump's victory.
Baca has made it clear he sees opposing Trump as a moral duty, but an Electoral college rebellion might also call the entire system into question, notes the Daily Mail. Some US politicians argue the system does not work Clinton is the second losing candidate to win more of the popular vote than the victor since 2000.
A petition encouraging the Electoral College to cast their votes for Clinton has been signed by more than 4.5 million people, but experts say the electors are unlikely to abandon Trump let alone switch party. Significantly, both President Barack Obama and Clinton herself have made a point of accepting the businessman's win.
"Obama and Clinton have repeatedly insisted that such acceptance is vital to the peaceful transition our democracy requires," says Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School. "I frankly cannot imagine either of them supporting the proposed move to have the Electoral College elect the former secretary of state on 19 December."
17 November
In her first official engagement since conceding the presidential election to Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton admitted there have been times she wanted to "never leave the house again", but urged Americans to keep up the fight for progressive values.
Clinton had agreed to speak at the annual gala of the Children's Defense Fund (CDF), the advocacy organisation where she began her legal career in the 1970s, long before her surprise defeat, The Guardian reports.
Once expected to address the room as the next US president, Clinton was instead introduced by CDF founder and close friend Marian Wright Edelman as the "people's president" in reference to the fact that the Democratic nominee won the popular vote by at least one million votes.
In an unusually candid address, Clinton admitted that "coming here tonight wasn't the easiest thing".
"There have been a few times this past week when all I've wanted to do was just to curl up with a good book or our dogs and never leave the house ever again," she told the Washington DC audience.
But although Clinton "said she had had to overcome deep sorrow to keep the commitment", the New York Times reports that "she came bearing a message of resolve".
"I know that over the past week a lot of people have asked themselves whether America is the country we thought it was," she said. "Please, listen to me when I say this: America is worth it. Our children are worth it. Believe in our country and fight for our values and never, ever give up."
She quoted Martin Luther King Jnr. "'The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice,'" she said. "I know sometimes it can feel awfully long believe me, I know," she added. "But I also know it does bend."
Since giving her concession speech on the morning after the election, Clinton has kept a low profile, with campaign sources indicating that she was taken aback by the poll-defying Trump victory.
Last night's speech was her first official public appearance since 9 November, although a photo taken by a hiker of Clinton walking with her husband, Bill, and their dogs in the woods near their home in Chappaqua, New York, the following day, quickly went viral on social media.
7 November
FBI director James Comey has cleared Hillary Clinton of criminal wrongdoing in relation to the emails discovered on a laptop used by her most senior aide.
Comey said yesterday that the FBI had completed its investigation of around 650,000 emails found on a computer used by Huma Abedin and her estranged husband, disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner.
Following the news, Republican Donald Trump told a rally in Minnesota Clinton was being "protected by a rigged system" and he still believed she was a "criminal".
Adam Schiff, the leading Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said the findings should clear Clinton's name "once and for all".
"The expeditious review of these emails should put to rest the irresponsible speculation indulged in by the Trump campaign and others," he said.
However, Republican house speaker Paul Ryan said that "regardless of this decision", Clinton still "put our nation's secrets at risk and in doing so compromised our national security".
In a series of Twitter statements, whistleblower website Wikileaks called into question the speed with which the FBI was able to complete this part of its investigation, saying the eight-day timeframe was "implausible".
Comey told Congress ten days ago the FBI had reopened its investigation into Clinton's use of a private email account and server while she was US secretary of state after discovering a new batch of messages.
His decision "shook up the White House race and reinvigorated the campaign of Republican nominee Donald Trump", theBBCsays.
The FBI director, who was heavily criticised from across the political spectrum for the timing of the investigation, remains in a "precarious position", The Guardian says.
John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House judiciary committee, said: "We will have many questions about the FBI's handling of this investigation."
2 November
The FBI has unexpectedly released 129 pages of heavily redacted documents relating to an investigation of former president Bill Clinton, which was closed without charges in 2005.
The investigation was prompted by the former president's controversial, last-minute pardon of fugitive billionaire Marc Rich in 2001. Rich fled the US before being indicted on charges of tax evasion.
Rich, who died in 2013, was married to Denise Rich, who gave more than $1m in donations to the Democrats, including donation to the William J Clinton Presidential Center and Park.
At the time, former president Jimmy Carter called the pardon "disgraceful", and said it was one of Clinton's "most serious mistakes".
The four-year investigation into Rich's pardon was led by the then-US Attorney James Comey, who is currently the director of the FBI leading the investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server.
The FBI announced the release of the documents via Twitter, causing many to question the timing of the release, just a few days out from the presidential election.
FBI officials told the Wall Street Journal the release "wasn't intentionally done during the last days of the election campaign", and was the result of a Freedom of Information Act request.
"These materials became available for release and were posted automatically and electronically to the FBI's public reading room in accordance with the law and established procedures," the agency said.
However senior Democrats, including campaign spokesman Brian Fallon, remain unconvinced.
The wording of the Twitter announcement has also caused confusion, leading many to "conclude the documents were related to the Clintons' charitable foundation", CNN says. The tweet, however, referred to Bill Clinton's presidential library, which is overseen by the William J Clinton Foundation, a separate entity.
1 November
Hillary Clinton's campaign team has accused FBI director James Comey of double standards after it emerged he tried to block an announcement that Russia was responsible for hacking into senior Democrats' email accounts.
"Comey argued against publicly disclosing the US intelligence community's conclusion that Russia was behind hacks into US political institutions," reports NBC News.
Comey told Congress on Friday the FBI was launching a new inquiry into Clinton's use of a private email account and servers while she was US secretary of state.
"It is impossible to view this as anything less than a blatant double standard," said Robby Mook, Clinton's campaign manager.
Comey should "immediately explain this incongruence and apply the same standard to Donald Trump's associates as he has applied to Hillary Clinton's", he added.
Democratic Senator Harry Reid accused the FBI of sitting on "explosive information" connecting Trump to the Russian government.
Richard Painter, a former ethics lawyer in George W Bush's White House, told the New York Timeshe has lodged a formal complaint with the Office of Special Counsel over the timing of Comey's letter to congress, which was announced less than two weeks before the US presidential election.
"The FBI's job is to investigate, not to influence the outcome of an election," he said.
Up to 650,000 emails that "may be pertinent" to the Clinton email investigation were discovered on a laptop shared by Clinton's close aide and confidante Huma Abedin and her estranged husband, disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner.
The messages were found during an unrelated investigation into allegations Weiner had sent explicit messages to an underage girl in North Carolina.
The content of the emails and their bearing on the presidential election have not yet been determined.
13 September
In 56 days the American people will choose their next president. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate, still leads in the polls, but her advantage has narrowed to three percentage points over the last few weeks.
Rumours that Clinton is unwell have dogged her campaign. The rumours have been dismissed as groundless conspiracy theories by her supporters and impartial observers but encouraged by her rival, Donald Trump.
Commentators have asked if a male candidate would undergo the same questioning and doubts about his stamina and fitness. Neither Trump nor Clinton has released their full medical records, though the Republican has now said he will.
Events came to a head on Sunday when the former secretary of state almost fainted as she left a 9/11 memorial event in New York. Her doctor later revealed she had been diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday, had "overheated" at the event and was now "recovering nicely".
According to The Guardian's Jonathan Freedland, it can take "seven or eight weeks" to fully recover from pneumonia and "recovery demands total rest". Clinton, says Freedland, "simply does not have that kind of time".
She may not be at death's door despite the claims of her enemies but it is still possible, if unlikely, that she might decide to stand down. So what will happen if Clinton pulls out of the race?
The good news for Democrats is there would be no need for a time-consuming national process: the Democratic Party rules say only the 447 members of its National Committee (DNC) vote to choose a replacement. If Trump stood down, the Republicans would be forced to hold a second national convention. "Unfortunately," says US site Uproxx, the down side for the Democrats is they have only a "short" list of possible replacements.
Strange as the idea sounds, there is a tradition of choosing a spouse to replace a candidate who is forced to withdraw, or who dies on the campaign trail. As Bill Clinton is not eligible (he has served two terms as president already), it is not inconceivable that the couple's daughter could take over. Her youth and inexperience would make her an outside choice, however.
It's unlikely that Clinton's former rival for the candidacy, a self-described socialist who put up an unexpectedly strong fight, would have a chance, says Uproxx, because he is less popular with the DNC than he proved with voters. However, the Daily Telegraph sees him as a possible candidate, alongside Joe Biden.
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What will Hillary Clinton do next? - The Week UK