In Is there any validity to the Claim that Hillary Clinton got bribed by India?, the question is of this form:
- Link
- Headline claim.
- Questions saying essentially please go to this article and tell me if the things in it are true.
Should we allow that? Or should we insist that the author actually include any claims to be checked in the question itself? And specify particular claims to check. Both to prevent link rot and to prevent the question from being too broad.
"Did Hillary Clinton get bribed by India?" is not a factual claim. Two people can look at the identical facts and come to different conclusions. Especially if the two people are from different partisan backgrounds. This isn't a clear case where someone is known to have said, "I'll do this for you if you give me money or some other compensation."
There are a number of factual claims in the linked article. E.g.
Did Bill Clinton impose restrictions on India which would be lifted by the bill?
Did Hillary Clinton favor an amendment to limit the bill with additional restrictions?
Did a number of Indian interests give money to Clinton enterprises after she announced support for that amendment and before she voted for the overall bill?
Was Sant Chatwal involved in the process of getting the bill passed?
Did Sant Chatwal arrange or help arrange a $450,000 speaking fee for Bill Clinton?
Not claimed but posed as a question:
- Did the Clinton enterprises receive money before the change in position (assuming it occurred) or after?
There are also some implied claims that are never formally stated:
Did India oppose the Russ Feingold amendment?
Did Hillary Clinton oppose the bill itself prior to receiving the cash?
Did she vote for or against the amendment?
Did the Clintons keep the $450,000 speaking fee arranged by Sant Chatwal?
Did she know about the gains that she received?
If she received the money after changing her position, was she still legally at risk of a bribery charge?
There are also a number of claims that are purely opinion-based:
Did Hillary Clinton gain in some way from the donations to the Clinton enterprises?
Assuming she gained, did this influence her vote?
Was this deliberate and intentional? Did she tell someone that she would support the bill if certain amounts were paid in certain ways? Or were the donations given without any promise or offer from her?
If she changed her position before the money was paid, does that mean that she wasn't morally guilty of receiving a bribe? Or just that she had more confidence in the bribers than they did in her?
Partisans on each side are likely to take different positions on each of these questions.
You can also click through to a Politico story that apparently inspired the Power Line blog entry. But reading that reveals that the original story comes from a book. Presumably both the book and Politico have other claims that I have not covered here.
Is this question Too Broad because it asks for sixteen fact checks in one question?
Is this question Unclear What You're Asking because that's too many questions, so it should be limited to a clearly defined set?
Is this question overly opinion-based because we have no way of knowing if Hillary Clinton is guilty of more than the appearance of wrong-doing?
Is this question off-topic because it is about claims made in the media about politicians rather than about the actual politics themselves?