The released emails leave the perception that donating to the Clinton Foundation gave the donor access to Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State that they might not have if they were a peasant from Timbuktu.

"We have gone above and beyond most of the legal requirements, beyond the standards to voluntarily disclose donors and to reduce sources of funding that raised questions - not that we thought they were necessarily legitimate, but to avoid those questions", she said. In total, the 85 donors contributed as much as $156 million, while at least 40 donated more than $100,000 each, and 20 gave more than $1 million. The FBI has turned over to the State Department another 15,000 emails that were discovered on her private server. In the emails, foundation employee Doug Band asks government staff for help - for the crown prince of Bahrain who wants a meeting with Clinton; the worldwide soccer player who needs an expedited U.S.travel visa; the billionaire who wants to speak with the ambassador to Lebanon.

The stench is familiar, and all too Clintonian in character.

The Clintons appear belatedly to have recognized their political peril.

Last week, Bill Clinton announced that if his wife wins, he will step aside from the foundation and it no longer will take foreign or corporate money. But by accepting contributions from foreign governments and wealthy interests at home, it creates the impression that favors are being traded.

One wonders: Will Bill be writing thank-you notes for the millions that will roll in to the family foundation-on White House stationery?

Yet she was the secretary of state, not an elected official.

Yet if Hillary Clinton becomes president, the scheme is unsustainable. "Trump's missteps, stumbles and gaffes seem to outweigh Clinton's shaky trust status and perceived shady dealings".

But finding the fire - the lie, the misdeed, the unethical act - is proving to be rather hard, as evidenced this week by an inaccurate tweet and arguably misleading story from the Associated Press that were quickly rebutted by the Clinton campaign and dismissed by many media outlets.

She is certainly right about the smoke.

Bill Clinton "will not be involved" in the initiatives that are spinning off or merging with another foundation, Shalala said. We are at what Churchill called the "end of the beginning".

Someone out there, Julian Assange, Russia, or the rogue websites doing all this hacking, are believed to have many more explosive emails they are preparing to drop before Election Day.

At least 85 out of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she was secretary of state had donated to the Clinton Foundation or pledged commitments to its global programs.

A federal judge ordered the schedules' release in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

The AP first asked for Clinton's calendars in 2010 and again in 2013, but was forced to sue the State Department for them after being met with refusals.

These were unearthed by Judicial Watch, which is not going away. "If any American voter is troubled by the idea that the Clintons want to continue working to solve the AIDS crisis on the side while Hillary Clinton is president, then don't vote for her". People tend to talk to people they know, and some of these relationships went back 30 years. They've demanded that a special prosecutor consider corruption charges over her family's charitable foundation.

For there were independent counsels called in Watergate, Iran-Contra and the scandals that led to the impeachment of Bill Clinton.

Now: Damon Linker, a writer at The Week, points out that Hillary Clinton's critics haven't actually found a smoking gun in all of this, no evidence of a quid pro quo in which money was exchanged for services.