The Hillary Clinton Karma Tracker: Presidential Election Edition

Did you or someone you love work to interfere with Hillary Clinton’s rightful ascent to the White House in the 2016 presidential election?

Good luck.

There’s an old saying that comes out of Arkansas from the era of the young Governor William Jefferson Clinton and his radical liberal wife, Hillary Rodham: “Never cross the Clintons.”

Since their emergence onto the political scene, the gossip rags and the dark recesses of the fake internet have been riddled with outlandish, unverified accounts of what happens when one dares to stand in their way.

Donald Trump’s first 100 days in the White House are officially a thing of the past and with nearly six months having passed since the 2016 presidential election, the unexpected defeat of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has remained the subject of intense postmortem speculation.

The on-going debate as to why she lost and the degree to which domestic (Comey, Sanders) and foreign (Russia) actors had an impact on the outcome have been given renewed life in recent weeks as Clinton has made a sort of public comeback, traversing the nation speaking to various women’s and civil rights organizations, even declaring herself a member of the “resistance.”

Donald Trump, however, is having a rougher go of it. He appears at times unconvinced of his own legitimacy, frequently regaling the press with histrionic outbursts about illegal Hillary voters, or the electoral map, or some other grandiose exercise in distraction.

Compare the respective weekends of the former rivals :

Uproarious standing ovations and love from the crowd have become a typical night out for Clinton, even as certain members of the media threaten to silence her.

Meanwhile, an interesting phenomenon has been quietly taking place.

As if forewarned by that prescient and mysterious saying out of Arkansas, participants to Clinton’s downfall are dropping like flies. Slowly, surely, methodically, they are paying the piper in glorious, ironic comeuppances that are the stuff of Shakespeare.

Was Hillary Clinton pre-ordained for the presidency after all? Is Hillary in fact “the Queen” and a deity whose wake is littered with the smote souls of those who dared cross her?

Behold, the fallen:

Marine Le Pen

This is more of an indirect hit, but has Lady Karma’s fingerprints all over it.

Despite news that Russian hackers had attacked his campaign and that his opponent had curiously requested a personal loan of £2.6 million from Russia, moderate Emmanuel Macron was elected president of France on Sunday. Macron’s business-friendly policies and pro-European Union views claimed a decisive victory over conservative firebrand Marine Le Pen, a far-right nationalist who threatened to take France out of the European Union.

When the United Kingdom voted to exit the European Union last June, a move that stunned the world and has been dubbed the “Brexit” referendum, speculation as to the global ramifications, including the effect it might have on the American presidential election, ran rampant. Although Donald Trump seemed a long shot for the presidency at the time, some commentators speculated that Brexit was a predictor for his victory.

Reports that she met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in March came amidst warnings from the United States Senate that Russia was seeking to interfere with the French election. Fortunately, Macron’s campaign took lessons from the American election interference and were able to lay traps for the Russian hackers and largely mitigate any damage done. Le Pen has expressed her repeated support of Mr. Putin.

Clinton had this message for Twitter on Sunday following news of Macron’s victory:

WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange (Pending)

Late last month, The Washington Post broke news that Justice Department is considering weighing charges against Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks who has denied involvement in the Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election (and countless other crimes) for which he has thus far successfully avoided extradition.

Clinton cites WikiLeaks as one of the offending interventionists who interfered with our right to refer to former President Bill Clinton as “First Dude.” Despite Assange’s denials, longtime Trump friend and advisor Roger Stone seemingly admitted to having had a “perfectly legal back channel” to him during the election, and reportedly revealed that Assange “indeed had the goods” on Hillary Clinton.

17 of the country’s top intelligence agencies have agreed that Russia engaged in cyber attacks on Clinton and the DNC in advance of the presidential election. In February, U.S. Counterterrorism Intelligence Officer Malcolm Nance told Bill Maher “[WikiLeaks is a] laundromat for Russian intelligence,” describing the massive Russian cyber hacks in chilling detail before stating that the Russians “just decided they were working for [the GOP].”

In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, FBI Director James Comey referred to WikiLeaks as “intelligence porn,” and warned that Russia may attempt to sway future presidential elections. He intimated that the days may be limited for Assange, stating that the only reason the WikiLeaks mastermind has not been apprehended is because he has been living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012.

Speaking of Russians

In the past 40 months, 38 prominent Russians or Kremlin officials have been mysteriously killed. Most of them were opposition voices or decidedly anti-Putin, with at least two being tied to the infamous Steele Dossier leaked by BuzzFeed News and CNN in February.

One way to trace Russian influence on the American presidential election, according to Clinton Watts of the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University: "Follow the trail of dead Russians," he said.

"There have been more dead Russians in the past three months that are tied to this investigation," he added. "They are dropping dead, even in Western countries."

FBI Director James Comey

Tuesday afternoon, news broke that Donald Trump had fired FBI Director James Comey, alleging that Comey is no longer able to effectively lead the bureau.

In his testimony last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Comey may have bought himself some time from having to render his karmic payment after offering up his version of a mea culpa, admitting that the prospect of having interfered with the outcome of the 2016 presidential election made him “mildly nauseous.” He went on to curry favor with the Clinton faithful by widely corroborating reports that Russian interference did in fact occur and that it was wide scale.

Still, Comey’s actions contributed, bigly, and many Clinton supporters believe the lip service is "not enough,” especially as some argue that but-for Comey’s now-infamous letter to Congress intimating potentially new charges in the Clinton e-mail scandal (which of course, never came to pass), Hillary Clinton would now be president.

General Michael Flynn

Disgraced former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn resigned in February following reports that he had engaged in talks with Russian officials in advance of Trump’s inauguration regarding potentially lifting Obama-era sanctions against Russia.

Flynn famously led chants of “lock her up” at the Republican National Convention last July, around the same time that the Department of Justice is said to have begun their private investigation into connections between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.

Congressman Jason Chaffetz

Representative Jason Chaffetz, the Republican Congressman from Utah best known for his role as the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, shocked constituents and politicians from Washington, D.C. to his home district in Utah when he announced last month that he would not be seeking re-election. The Congressman even stated in later reports that he may not even complete the remainder of his current term. The decision has prompted many to ask, “why?”

Chaffetz famously criticized Hillary Clinton about the 2012 attacks on the American embassy in Benghazi, intimating that Clinton was to blame, despite numerous investigations costing millions of taxpayer dollars and all of which came to the conclusion that there was no wrongdoing. He has also taken a hypocritical stance on the faux e-mail controversy, with some even calling it an obsession, while expressing no concern over Donald Trump’s various conflicts of interest.

During Donald Trump’s inauguration, Chaffetz brown-nosed to Clinton and then later used an image caught by social media users of himself doing so and re-captioned it to make it appear as though he was playing bad cop.

Nevertheless, she persisted: Clinton’s Karma Tracker claims yet another. And you can take Congressman Devin Nunes with you, Congressman Chaffetz.

The Gents of Right Wing Media

Do you have a minute? Previous Clinton-crossers who are now paying the price include former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, InfoWars’ disgraced front-man Alex Jones, Bill O'Reilly, Rupert Murdoch, Steve Bannon, Jesse Watters, and Roger Ailes. All of these gentleman are mainstays and icons of right-wing media who have had epic breakdowns in 2017.

Sooner or later, they’ll learn. They always do:

Never cross a Clinton.

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Is there someone on this list who shouldn’t be, or a glaring omission worthy of inclusion? Tweet your thoughts to @alexmohajer and use #HillarysKarmaTracker.

Alex Mohajer is a political writer and commentator for HuffPost and is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Bros4America, a progressive political advocacy organization. Find him on Facebook or on Twitter.