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The prize quote of this incendiary political year may go to Hillary Clinton. In response to Donald Trump’s charge that the Clintons set up a pay-for-play arrangement that granted big contributors access to Clinton while she was secretary of state, Hillary Clinton said, “My work as secretary of state was not influenced by any outside forces. I made policy decisions based on what I thought was right to keep Americans safe and protect our interests abroad.” She added, “I know there’s a lot of smoke, and there’s no fire.”

Can there be smoke without fire? I asked an expert. My son, Jay Thomas, has spent most of his professional life as a firefighter. He tells me: “Very simply put, where there is smoke there is, or was, fire. Smoke is a byproduct of combustion. There are three stages of fire: smoldering, incipient and free burning. Each one (emits) smoke.”

For more, I turn to the website Programmerinterview.com: “The phrase ‘where there’s smoke there’s fire’ means that if something looks wrong then it probably is wrong — just like if you see smoke there probably is a fire somewhere. ... When the signs of trouble are there, then that means that trouble is probably there as well.”