Judicial Watch, the indefatigable Clinton adversary that has probably done more than any other individual or organization to create the narrative that Mrs. Clinton is still battling: that she is untrustworthy.
.. Judicial Watch’s strategy is simple: Carpet-bomb the federal courts with Freedom of Information Act lawsuits. A vast majority are dismissed. But Judicial Watch caught a break last year, when revelations about Mrs. Clinton’s private email server prompted two judges to reopen two of the group’s cases connected to her tenure as secretary of state.
.. The questions, some with multiple parts, ask her to explain her rationale for using the private server and her reaction to warnings about the potential for security breaches, among other things. Her answers, to be provided via written testimony to the court, are due by Thursday.
.. Suing the government, repeatedly, is an expensive proposition; Judicial Watch has an annual budget of about $35 million that pays for close to 50 employees — a mix of lawyers, investigators and fund-raisers. Mr. Fitton says the group receives donations from nearly 400,000 individuals and institutions every year. One of its biggest funders, according to public filings, is the Sarah Scaife Foundation, which was created by the banking heir Richard Mellon Scaife, who died in 2014. In the 1990s, Mr. Scaife was one of the leading financiers of the right-wing effort to bring down the Clintons, bankrolling conservative think tanks and publications — as well as Judicial Watch.
.. Litigiousness is in the organization’s DNA: Its founder, Larry Klayman, once sued his mother. Mr. Klayman has described himself as a conservative Ralph Nader, but during Bill Clinton’s presidency, he often behaved more like a self-appointed Kenneth W. Starr, papering Washington with subpoenas related to every would-be Clinton scandal. His departure from the organization in 2003 was accompanied, unsurprisingly, by litigation: Mr. Klayman accused the organization, and his successor, Mr. Fitton, of “fraud, disparagement, defamation, false advertising and other egregious acts.”
How Donald Trump Could Send Republicans Crashing Down
But the videotape fits all of the major criteria for a damaging scandal, and it puts congressional Republicans in a precarious position.
It fits the Democrats’ contention that Mr. Trump is a misogynist. The Clinton campaign has been laying the groundwork for weeks with ads about his statements about women.
■ The scandal is easy to explain and can be turned into new television advertisements, although in this case it is probably unnecessary.
.. In August 2012, Claire McCaskill and Todd Akin were in a competitive Missouri Senate race before Mr. Akin, the Republican candidate, said that victims of what he called “legitimate rape” very rarely became pregnant.
.. Over all, he lost about 20 percent of the voters who supported Mr. Romney, according to exit polls.
.. It’s not clear to me that Mrs. Clinton could approach anything like 55 percent of the vote, given her high unfavorable ratings, even in a total Trump collapse.
.. Then came Mark Foley. In late September, it was revealed that Mr. Foley, a Republican congressman, had sent lewd messages to former congressional pages. At least some House Republicans were aware of it, and didn’t do anything
.. The underlying vulnerability in each case — George W. Bush and Mr. Trump — did not go away. But it really seemed as if the 2016 G.O.P. could dodge the worst of it
..Mr. Trump poses a more difficult challenge for Republican officials than Mr. Foley did: There was no cost to repudiating Mr. Foley, but the decision on whether to repudiate Mr. Trump puts Republicans in the unenviable position of alienating either Mr. Trump’s fervent base or moderate voters.
What We’re Watching for in the Second Debate
The biggest shock is their charade of it, because the recording revealed nothing new. The Trump it captures is the Trump that we’ve all heard, seen and known from the beginning. The only difference is that he’d pretty much reached his end by the time the recording came out. His revolting words enabled Republicans who were increasingly certain of his defeat in the presidential election and were itching for an exit route to wrap themselves in moral outrage as they skittered to one.
.. But why should Trump the Lech be the final straw any more than Trump the Bigot or Trump the Racist? What precisely about his grotesque banter with Bush was more damning than the way he clung to the birther conspiracy and congratulated himself for it? Or his dismissal of a Mexican-American judge? Or his adoration of Vladimir Putin? Or so much else? He disqualified himself repeatedly — and long ago.
.. But if Sunday night’s debate doesn’t stanch his bleeding, look for a new tactic and an altered message: that a Clinton presidency is inevitable and that voters with apprehensions about it should make sure that she’s restrained by a Congress in firm Republican control.
Romney: Trump’s comments ‘demean our wives and daughters and corrupt America’s face to the world’
Mitt Romney, one of the most vocal conservatives opposed to Donald Trump’s candidacy, condemned comments the Republican nominee made degrading women as “vile degradations” that “demean our wives and daughters and corrupt America’s face to the world.”
.. In the conversation, he says to “Access Hollywood’s” Billy Bush that “I don’t even wait” to kiss women and described grabbing them by their genitals.
.. The Washington Post published audio and video from the conversation, caught by a hot microphone, on Friday, prompting Trump to release a short statement apologizing for causing offense without saying he was sorry for making the comments.