"And I remember at that point saying, well, you know, thank you very much kind of thing, and he sort of continued chatting and, and said, and made a comment about his travels he was headed on."

"And I said, well, we’ve got to get going to the hotel. And I said I’m sure you’ve got somewhere to, to go. And he said yes. And I forget where he told me he was going. He was flying somewhere, but...I’ve forgotten where. He said I’m going to wherever I’m off to. And then he made some comment about West Virginia. And I do not know if he was headed to West Virginia. I just don’t know...if that was the reference to it. And he made a...comment about West Virginia and coal issues and how their problems really stem from policies that were set forth in 1932. And he talked about those policies for a while. And, and I said, okay, well."

I have read part of the IG's report. I read pages 202 to 211, about Bill Clinton's weird, extended intrusion onto Loretta Lynch on the tarmac in Phoenix on June 27, 2018. Could you please read that section and tell me what you think Bill Clinton was doing and the extent to which Loretta Lynch understood it and when in the 20 minutes or so she realized it was a problem?

The Executive Summary (page v) says "we found no evidence that Lynch and former President Clinton discussed the Midyear investigation or engaged in other inappropriate discussion during their tarmac meeting" but there was "the appearance problem" and Lynch made "an error in judgment" by not "tak[ing] action to cut the visit short."

We could talk about how narrowly the statements in the Executive Summary are framed. There's a lot of talk of finding no evidence, often tied to a particular issue, like whether Lynch and Bill Clinton discussed the Midyear investigation or another topic that they shouldn't have discussed. But I'd like to talk about the evidence that that the IG did find and the inferences that can be made from that evidence. There is a lot of evidence on pages 202 to 211, and I wish you'd read it before I tell you the inference that came through loud and clear for me.

My inference, from the evidence, is that Bill Clinton intended to cause Loretta Lynch to believe that she would be shown favor in a Hillary Clinton administration and to think that she was a front runner for the empty Supreme Court seat. Bill did not need to talk about the Midyear investigation. In fact, he needed to avoid it as he made himself at home on the plane, sitting down and staying far too long. In this interpretation, talking about the grandchildren made sense...

Well, after he was sharing with us his story about how...they introduced the two grandchildren to each other, which involved a toy...and that was green, and just, again, the family issues...

... because it created an aura of friendly closeness — a toy... that was green — and was meant to lodge in her mind that she was indeed a good friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton's.

At some point, after two or three minutes, President Clinton turned around. I had my tote bags on the bench seat of the plane, because I had put them there when he came on board. I had been holding them. I put them down. He picked up my tote bags and moved them, and then he sat down. So he sat down, and my husband and I were still standing in front of him having the discussion. And...he sort of sat heavily, and...I didn’t know...how he felt, so I can’t say one way or the other. But he sat down and started talking about, you know, the grandkids and how they introduced them to each other. And so, and ultimately, because this went on for a little but, my husband and I sat down also, and, you know, had that discussion about his family and the kids[.]

He moved her tote bags! He used bodily movements to convey the idea that this is a sit-down session that is going to last, to draw her close and give her time to feel that something will come her way if she returns the good, warm, close feelings. I don't know if she ever got the idea: He's trying to say without saying that I will get the Supreme Court nomination. Or at least: Is he trying to make me think I'll get the Supreme Court nomination? And then, if she thought that, what next? Of course the IG has no evidence of what she thought, but I assume that the idea of getting the nomination flashed through her head. And when it did, what did she think?

I imagine that Lynch thought he's trying to make me think I've got a lot to gain if I treat Hillary Clinton well and that Lynch wanted what Bill Clinton was implicitly offering but also knew what he was doing was horribly wrong and had more potential to hurt her reputation than to get her the prize he was dangling.

ADDED: Bill moved the tote bags to create room "on the bench seat." Here, Loretta. Here's a seat on the bench. Won't you sit down?

ALSO: Did Lynch have reason to think she was a major contender for the empty Supreme Court seat?  Yes. She was enough of a contender at the time when Barack Obama was trying to be the one to fill the seat that she publicly withdraw her name for consideration (in early March of 2016):

“While [Lynch] is deeply grateful for the support and good wishes of all those who suggested her as a potential nominee, she is honored to serve as Attorney General, and she is fully committed to carrying out the work of the Department of Justice for the remainder of her term,” [said a  Justice Department spokeswoman].

There is speculation that Lynch did not want a long, drawn-out confirmation battle, which is almost assured given that congressional Republicans have said that they will not confirm any nominee put forth by the president—but especially one who might tip the court to the “left.”

It's easy to infer that she knew the odds were much better to wait for Hillary Clinton to win. Of course, Bill Clinton knew all this when he approached Lynch in June on that tarmac.

And here's an article in The Washington Times from about a month before the election about Hillary Clinton's possible nominees:

Mrs. Clinton, unlike Donald Trump, hasn’t released a list of names she would recommend to the court, saying only that Congress should confirm President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland. That’s the politically correct thing to say right now — but if Mrs. Clinton wins in November, there’s no doubt she’ll name her own, more liberal choice to the bench. There’s been some speculation that Loretta Lynch, the attorney general of the Department of Justice, could be on Mrs. Clinton’s short-list....