Hillary: 'People Should and Do Trust Me;' Also, My Secret Emails are a Phony Scandal and I Won't Discuss the Clinton Foundation

Hillary Clinton, who's been an officially-declared presidential candidate since early April, finally sat down for her first national interview of the campaign yesterday -- roughly three months after formally entering the race. She

spoke with CNN, gladly parlaying a question about Donald Trump into a means of tarring the entire Republican field as "hostile" to immigrants: "They're on a spectrum of hostility, which I think is really regrettable in a nation of immigrants like ours," she said. One wonders where these remarks from a certain former Senator might fall on said spectrum:

"I am, you know, adamantly against illegal immigrants."
Just like she was adamantly opposed to changing the definition of marriage, before she was adamantly in favor of leaving it up to states, before she was adamantly and self-righteously supportive of the Supreme Court's ruling establishing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. And just like she was adamantly for the war in Iraq, until she wasn't. This is a woman who will say or do anything that the political moment requires; she evidently believes that the current moment requires her to repudiate her husband's legacy, while airily dismissing serious ethical charges being leveled against her as the latest spasms of the famed, vast right-wing conspiracy. She's totally trustworthy, she asserts, dismissing polling to the contrary. Just trust her, people:

"I cannot decide what the attacks will be on me, no matter how unfounded," she laments, referring to books like

Clinton Cash that she claims are filled with evidence-free lies. Among the "unfounded" attacks she waves off are questions about her secret email server, the controversy over which she frames as another hair-brained, GOP-fabricated phony scandal. She did everything required of her and beyond, she lies:

She similarly dismissed questions about her use of a personal email address on a private server while serving as secretary of state. Clinton said she turned over all the emails -- including some which show her using a secured fax machine, or asking for iced tea during meetings -- that had anything to do with public business, and that she broke no laws in sticking with one device because she's not technically savvy. "This is being blown up with no basis in law or in fact. That's fine, I get it -- this is being, in effect, used by the Republicans in the Congress. OK," Clinton said. "But I want people to understand what the truth is, and the truth is, everything I did was permitted and I went above and beyond what was expected."

Three flagrant lies: (1) She did not, in fact, "turn over all the emails that had anything to do with public business." Her lawyers unilaterally deleted more than 30,000 emails from her secret server, which they proceeded to wipe clean. Subsequent evidence has

unambiguously demonstrated that her team destroyed an unknown number of non-personal, work-related emails pertaining to Benghazi and Libya. (2) She did not "stick with one device," the original fable she spun to justify the existence of her insecure private server. Nor did she limit her correspondence to one email address, another falsehood. (3) Far from going "above and beyond" on transparency and records-keeping compliance, Mrs. Clinton knowingly and repeatedly violated "clear cut" State Department guidelines, serving up "laughable" excuses after the fact, and papering over her ethical and possibly legal lapses. As for the web of unvetted, undisclosed, unreported foreign cash flowing into her family's and foundation's coffers for years -- including from entities and parties that were actively lobbying her State Department -- Her Majesty does not deign to address those issues:

"I have no plans to say or do anything about the Clinton foundation other than to say I am proud of it and I think for the good of the world, its work should continue," she said.

She won't address this, this, this, this, this or this, thank you very much. Next question. But don't forget how very trustworthy she is. I'll leave you with a taste of media reaction to Hillary's performance. Reviews were far from glowing, starting with

Politico's Dylan Byers:

The first national interview of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign did not go well. She dodged questions about Bernie Sanders' appeal, refused to say whether she would seek to raise taxes, dismissed data showing that the majority of Americans don't trust her, and was repeatedly forced to defend her lack of transparency at both the State Department and the Clinton Foundation. And yet, toward the interview's conclusion, the long-evasive Democratic front-runner pledged to do more uncomfortable sit-downs like the one she had just, painstakingly, endured.

"Defensive...annoyed...evasive...irritated" (via the Free Beacon):