Catherine Cortez Masto clearly believes that Hillary Clinton should get to play by a different set of rules than everyone else. When put on the spot, she refused to offer anything more than the mildest of rebukes for Clinton’s ‘extremely careless’ use of a private email server, which exposed classified information to potential security threats.
And at a rare campaign stop yesterday, Cortez Masto indicated she’s ready to follow in in Clinton’s footsteps: she wouldn’t say whether she would rule out using a private email server if elected to federal office:
[youtube url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmWJPSkaPXI"]
REPORTER: Would you have used one at the federal level, like her?
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO: I’m not going to speculate.
Cortez Masto has a history of siding with political allies when they break the public trust, allowing them to play by a different set of rules than everyone else. Take the case of Morse Arberry, a corrupt lawmaker who pocketed $121,000 in unreported campaign funds. Did Cortez Masto hold her fellow Democrat accountable as attorney general? Nope, she ratcheted down the felony charges against Arberry and let him walk away virtually unscathed:
“Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto has used her own conversion scheme — transforming six felony charges into a misdemeanor — to penalize another — ex-Assemblyman Morse ‘Moose’ Arberry’s turning $121,000 in campaign funds he never reported into personal cash…”
“This is as close to a slam-dunk, open-and-shut, choose-your-cliché case as you can get, folks. They had bank records detailing the deposits. They have the contribution forms showing the checks were not disclosed. And, on those same forms, they have Arberry’s signature beneath where it states, ‘I declare under penalty of perjury ….’”
“As one Democrat — yes, Democrat — said of the Arberry deal made for a Democrat by a Democrat: ‘Horrific. Embarrassing for all of us.’
“The perception is even worse for an attorney general who indicted a GOP lieutenant governor (Brian Krolicki) for financial mismanagement but never alleged he enriched himself — as Arberry did — before the case fell apart.” (Jon Ralston, “Arberry Case Reinforces Double Standards,” Las Vegas Sun, 8/23/11)
The message from Cortez Masto is painfully clear: she and her allies get to play by one set of rules, everyone else has to play by another.