Rick HasenVerified account

11. Story shows that Trump engaged in pay-to-play to try to avoid civil (and maybe eventually criminal) investigations of fraud by Trump U

12. And Trump has admitted that the reason he gave $ to politicians (when he was still supposedly self-funding) was to buy influence/access

13. So on the transactional nature of politics Trump seems much worse than Clinton, and there's much more digging on this for journalists

14. Yet journalists don't cover the Trump influence access story nearly as much for a number of reasons:

15. (a) There's so much else about Trump to cover because he's outrageous and every speech sets a new fire

16. (b) There are rich stories from Trump's past, like his history of racial discrimination in housing

17. (c) Because Trump is so outrageous, the media seems less interested in the access/governing story which is so important

18. (d) Thanks to FOIA disclosures, there's always a new news peg for Clinton access stories but not for Trump, which requires digging

19. (e) Clinton campaign and HRC have longstanding antagonistic relationship with press, which just encourages aggressiveness on both sides

20. Clinton would actually help herself by doing regular press conferences and availabilities, which would lower temperature w/journalists

21. But watching Clinton campaign/allies tangling w/ ournalists like @kenvogel just exacerbates animosity/feelings of mistreatment by both

22. And in the end Clinton gets more disproportionate stories on sale of access /influence when Trump seems to be much bigger offender.~FIN~