By Britt Nelson

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.

Early last week, United States voters across the spectrum got a wake-up call. As the story broke about former President Bill Clinton having met ‘privately’ with Attorney General Loretta Lynch aboard her private jet at the Phoenix airport everyone who heard it were shaking their heads in disbelief.

Harsh criticism from both Republicans and Democrats on the 30-minute meeting came quickly, causing Lynch to admit the meeting looked bad and that it should not have happened.

The appearance of impropriety has cast another dark cloud over the presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton. At the very least, this incident is pure intimidation of Lynch by a former President. Lynch was quick to say all they talked about were family matters, grandchildren and just general chit chat. She was just as quick to deny that no conversations about the FBI’s email investigation or the Clinton Foundation took place. Few are buying it.

“I certainly wouldn’t do it again because I think it has cast this shadow over what it should not, over what it will not touch,” Lynch said Friday during an appearance at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado, according to a New York Daily News story. “It’s important to make it clear that that meeting with President Clinton does not have a bearing on how this matter will be reviewed and resolved.”

Two days after this ‘private’ meeting, the U.S. Department of Justice that Lynch leads, filed a motion in federal court to delay for 27 months the release of 14,000 pages of emails between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her husband, her staff and the Clinton Foundation. If approved, voters will not see this information until long after a second Clinton administration might begin.

The emails were scheduled to be released July 21 by the U.S. Department of State. The prospect of no delay being granted must be causing shock waves within the Clinton campaign and providing more fuel for Republican presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump to hammer Clinton on. Trump certainly needs this type of fuel as respected political analyst and statistician Nate Silver is predicting a landslide victory for Clinton.

Lynch went on to say that she would accept whatever recommendations the FBI gives on the conclusions of their nearly one-year-long investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server at her home in New York while she was Secretary of State.

According to Sunday morning TV news shows, Hillary Clinton met with FBI investigators for the first time on Saturday at the FBI headquarters in Washington, DC. Members of Clinton’s staff have already been interviewed by the FBI.

“Let’s put the Clinton and Lynch meeting in perspective. What are the odds of their two planes being on the same tarmac at the same time? The fact that both are protected by security personnel belies the fact he just sauntered over to say hi,” said Alex Sharp, an assistant district attorney in Palatka, Florida. “The fact that it took a reporter to let us know because those two obviously did not want the people to know… oh and let’s quit calling it a private meeting, it was a secret meeting, they just got caught! It was an arranged meeting … period. The truth will come out, interview the security [staff]!”

By the weekend, both former President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary Clinton, commented about the airport meeting and both expressed regrets.

“Obviously no one wants to see any untoward conclusions drawn, and they’ve said, you know, they would not do it again,” Hillary Clinton said.

An unnamed aide to former President Clinton released a statement Sunday to ABC News expressing regret over the meeting with Lynch.

“The President’s conversation with the Attorney General was unplanned and was entirely social in nature. But recognizing how others could take another view of it, he agrees with the Attorney General that he would not do it again,” the aide said.

This controversy received considerable media coverage and now it’s up to the FBI to do the right thing and publicly announce without delay the findings of their probe into Clinton’s handling of top-secret information.

All of these things stink: the not-so-secret meeting, the expressions of regret, Lynch backtracking as fast as she can, a former President meddling with his (and his wife’s) questionable dealings and causing the appearance of collusion with a sitting Attorney General while investigations are still in progress. It is clear that former President Clinton imposed himself upon Lynch and he injected himself into this situation.

What was Lynch to do when a former president wanted to meet for a few minutes? Lynch should have said hell no, but she didn’t.

About the Author

Britt Nelson relocated to Costa Rica in 2011 from Florida, where he served as news editor for the Palatka Daily News, a newspaper owned by the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group (NYT-RNG) for 20 years.

Nelson served the NYT-RNG for 18 years in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida as a correspondent, reporter, staff writer, senior staff writer training new reporters, copy editor, page designer, editorial writer, editorial page editor and editorial board member.