RUTHFULLY YOURS

Let her go or lock her up?

Hillary Clinton’s fate is one piece of old business that will sit on President Donald J. Trump’s desk and fester like a warm mackerel.

Trump’s ambitious agenda involves scrapping and substituting Obamacare, cutting taxes, liberating the energy sector, securing America’s southern “border,” and much more — nearly everything controversial.

Congressional Democrats will be unusually obstructive due to Hillary’s upset loss, a unified Republican government in Washington, and the GOP’s strongest position nationwide since 1928, according to RealClearPolitics. Liberal politicians and activists called Trump a latter-day Mussolini for saying in his final debate that he would “keep you in suspense” before agreeing in advance to accept Election Day’s results. Leftist street thugs then fascistically rejected the outcome of a fair and decisive election, trashed personal property, smashed windows, sparked fires, and — like dedicated Brownshirts — physically pummeled Trump supporters.

As such, Democrats on Capitol Hill — and their enraged base — likely will be in no mood to compromise. Despite Republican control of the Senate, incoming Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York is no wallflower. He almost surely will tie Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s shoelaces together at every turn. This probably will include filibustering everything this side of legislation on National Asparagus Month.

Against this backdrop, it must be tempting for Team Trump to blow Crooked Hillary’s dank, lawless stench out the nearest window. Indeed, Trump’s senior adviser Kellyanne Conway told MSNBC Tuesday that “he doesn’t wish to pursue these charges.”

If true, this would abandon the pledge that Trump made to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who chanted “Lock her up!” at his rallies and the 61.9 million voters who sent Trump to Washington to purify Hillary’s ethical Superfund site.

Hillary auctioned off public favors as if the Clinton Foundation were Sotheby’s and abused state secrets so flagrantly that her maid reportedly printed out classified documents for the former secretary of state to read. According to the New York Post’s Paul Sperry, this may have included the Presidential Daily Brief, the most secret document in Washington.

Letting Hillary off the hook, yet again, will not only permit her to pay no price for her massive corruption, relentless lies, and shockingly high crimes. If she gets away with this, it will confirm once and for all that, like slavery, equal justice under law is gone with the wind. Citizens will toil beneath a two-tiered legal system in which regular folks suffer consequences for their misbehavior while the elite snicker at their violations, snag hefty honoraria, and samba to the next gala dinner.

This sleaze will embitter most Americans. Many will conclude that if the well-connected can break the law with impunity, the overlooked should not be bound by it, either.

This is social Drano.

“Donald Trump must commit his administration to a serious, independent investigation of the very serious Clinton national security, email, and pay-to-play scandals,” said Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton. “If Mr. Trump’s appointees continue the Obama administration’s politicized spiking of a criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton, it would be a betrayal of his promise to the American people to ‘drain the swamp’ of out-of-control corruption in Washington, D.C.”

Nonetheless, the prospect of Attorney General Jeff Sessions prosecuting his boss’s political opponent would leave a gamey, equatorial taste in the mouth. This would fuel further partisan rancor, from Capitol Hill to the neighborhood baseball diamond.

Thus, Donald Trump should address this matter exactly as he told Hillary he would, to her face, at their second presidential debate: “If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation.”

Trump should play Pontius Pilate, ask Justice to hand this reeking mackerel to an independent counsel, and wash his hands of this stinking mess. Then Trump can make America great again.

Meanwhile, once equipped with subpoena power, search warrants, and a grand jury, that law-enforcement appointee should scour Hillary, Bill, and Chelsea Clinton, their foundation, their shady transactions, their school of fishy friends, and — of course — Hillary’s at best grossly negligent mishandling of classified data.

While Trump governs, a special prosecutor should gather and weigh the evidence on Hillary Clinton and then decide whether to let her go or lock her up.

— Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor and a contributing editor with National Review Online.