RUTHFULLY YOURS

Can Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump get knocked off their respective monorails to the Democrat and Republican nominations? These front-runners are not necessarily unstoppable.

Clinton’s rival needs to paint a picture. Senator Bernie Sanders (Socialist, Vt.) should ask Democrats and their media allies to imagine that it’s October 20. Clinton is locked in a competitive battle with Republican standard bearer Marco Rubio. Her campaign jet zips among Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and other swing states. Early voting already has begun.

But Hillary cannot focus solely on the crowds that greet her. “What do you think Huma will say in court today?” one journalist shouts at her. Another yells: “Will the accusations against you disappear before Election Day?”

The next morning, Clinton herself is ordered to appear in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who was named to the bench by none other than Clinton’s husband. She is scheduled to answer questions in Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the State Department. After Judge Sullivan granted discovery to the conservative watchdog group, and State’s inspector general subpoenaed the records of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin, it’s no surprise when Clinton becomes ensnared in this burgeoning legal thicket.

Clinton suddenly vanishes from the hustings, huddles with criminal-defense attorneys, and calculates what to say in a federal courtroom on October 25 — a fortnight before Election Day.

Sanders should ask his massive crowds: “Is that how you want to spend the fall campaign?”

As the ever-astute Marc Thiessen explained in Monday’s Washington Post, by barely mentioning Clinton’s ethical woes, Sanders is leaving unbrandished his best weapon against Clinton. Even Democrats consider Clinton shady. Among the 34 percent of New Hampshire Democrats who value honesty above all, Sanders beat Hillary 92 percent to 6. But in Nevada, among the 25 percent of voters who consider electability paramount, Clinton won 82 percent to 12. In short, Democrats see Clinton as the crook who can win.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch confirmed Wednesday that Justice Department prosecutors are cooperating with the FBI’s probe of Clinton’s abuse of state secrets, plus possible corruption involving the Clinton Foundation’s suspected role as a cash register for State Department favors. Democrats already know Clinton is devious. Sanders immediately needs to define her as the woman who consequently will lose the election.

Sanders need not agree with Republicans who want Clinton in handcuffs. He merely should tell Democrats the political consequences of Clinton’s getting trapped beneath tons of ethical rubble as voters cast their ballots.

Meanwhile, can anything stop or even slow Trump? Last week, he tangled with Pope Francis. And then he won the Nevada Caucus with 46 percent of the vote.

Trump’s competitors and Republican leaders should detail just how generous he has been with Democrats.

Source: Newsmeat.com via Wayback Machine

The San Francisco-based Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine captured data from Newsmeat.com, a now-defunct campaign-donation website. These figures show Trump’s giving from 1978 through November 2, 2010.

Putting aside special-interest money, among Trump’s $437,550 in donations to the two main parties between 1978 and 2010, 42 percent financed Republicans and 58 percent funded Democrats. In 2010, the very year that Republicans battled Obamacare and the Tea Party came to a boil — Trump donated $10,000 to the New York Grassroots Victory Fund. This was the latest gift to Democrats from Trump, whom Newsmeat.com described deliciously as “real estate developer, game show host.”

Before that, Trump contributed to many Democrats including:

$2,400 to Nevada senator Harry Reid

$4,100 to former New York senator Hillary Clinton (with his son Donald Jr.)

$4,300 to former New York representative Anthony Weiner

$5,000 to Massachusetts senator Ted Kennedy

$5,750 to New York senator Chuck Schumer

Source: Center for Responsive Politics/OpenSecrets.org

Since then, Trump has improved. As Alex Baumgart of the Center for Responsive Politics (OpenSecrets.org) told me, Trump’s $889,600 in total giving to date includes $314,100 (35 percent) to Democrats and $575,500 (65 percent) to Republicans.

Top Republicans should ask GOP primary voters this question: Can you trust a man who, in recent years, has handed 35 to 58 percent of his political donations to Democrats?

— Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University.