As Donald Trump and his campaign come under scrutiny for their ties to the Kremlin, GOP hatchet man Peter Schweizer has launched a desperate attack on Sec. Clinton’s record of promoting American businesses abroad.
In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that was simultaneously published on the Trump-aligned Breitbart News, Schweizer accused Sec. Clinton of showing favoritism towards Clinton Foundation donors in dealings with Russia. It’s the same type of false allegation that Schweizer made in his book Clinton Cash —and that independent media outlets previously debunked.
The op-ed is simply Schweizer’s latest attempt to smear Sec. Clinton and the Clinton Foundation with innuendo—and distract the media from the growing scandal over the Trump campaign’s desire to have a cozy relationship with the Kremlin. For months, Trump has praised Vladimir Putin and threatened to unravel the NATO alliance if Russia invaded a U.S. ally. But in the past few weeks, the Trump campaign’s flirtations with Russia have developed into something more sinister. Trump surrogates reportedly took out a plank in the Republican platform pledging to provide arms to Ukraine to fight Kremlin-backed rebels. Over the past two days, Politico and The Guardian have both reported on the close business and political ties between Trump, senior Republican officials and the Russian elite. And just yesterday, Trump himself appeared to defend Russia’s annexation of Crimea in an interview with ABC News.
It’s a stunning reversal for the Party of Reagan. Voters are now being forced to ask themselves why Trump treats Putin with more respect than many of his fellow Americans. That’s why the GOP had to call in Schweizer—a specialist in conspiracy theory and a mediocre hack (at best):
Schweizer is a Right-Wing Operative with a History of Peddling Discredited Conspiracy Theories
Schweizer is a Partisan Operative
Schweizer was “a Senior Editor-at-large for the conservative outlet Breitbart” and worked as “a fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution.” “Schweizer is a Senior Editor-at-Large for the conservative outlet Breitbart News and was a fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution think tank. He also worked with President George W. Bush’s speechwriting team in the last year of Bush’s presidency.”
Schweizer was formerly an adviser to Sarah Palin.
The Times, it seems, has decided to debase itself by following the breadcrumbs dropped by this former adviser to Sarah Palin because Schweizer devotes a chapter to Giustra and Kazakhstan, which the Times reported on back in 2008, and the Times plans to follow up on that. I remember reading that Times story at the time and going, ‘Wow, that does look bad.’ But then I also remember reading this Forbes (yes, Forbes!) debunking of the Times story, which was headlined ‘Clinton Commits No Foul in Kazakhstan Uranium Deal.’
Schweizer ran the conservative “Government Accountability Initiative” largely funded by a major supporter of Ted Cruz.
‘I think this is a political put-up job, and I can smell it from a mile away,’ Brock said during an interview on MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe.’ ‘Yesterday it came out that The New York Times and Fox News were both chasing promotional deals with the author. The Times hyped the story yesterday, praised it, they withheld publicly available information about the author,’ Brock said. ‘They noted that he runs something called the Government Accountability Initiative, but they don’t say that that’s funded by a prime funder of Ted Cruz’s super PAC, by Donor Trust, which is a Koch brothers pass through, so it’s subsidized by Hillary Clinton’s enemies.’
Schweizer’s Clinton Cash was Aided by Koch Brothers
Schweizer’s Clinton Cash was backed by a Koch Brothers-linked organization.
The Clinton campaign circulated a memo to its surrogates and allies on Tuesday night that details talking points and responses to the soon-to-be-published book ‘Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,’ by conservative author Peter Schweizer. ‘The book was backed by a Koch Brothers-linked organization and a billionaire family that is bankrolling Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign,’ writes national press secretary Brian Fallon in the memo, which was forwarded to POLITICO by one of its recipients. In the three-page note Fallon also writes that Schweizer has coordinated with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, another presidential candidate and frequent Clinton critic.
New York Daily News’ Joe Conason: “Clinton Cash” has been promoted by a “group of right-wing billionaires.”
And like Whitewater, which was covertly promoted by a right-wing Pittsburgh billionaire named Richard Mellon Scaife, this new ‘scandal’ has been promoted by another group of right-wing billionaires, namely Charles and David Koch and their friends, whose ‘dark money’ organizations have provided lavish funding to create and promote ‘Clinton Cash’ — along with its publisher HarperCollins, controlled by Rupert Murdoch.
Schweizer’s Book Contained No Evidence to Back up His Claims
Vox: Schweizer “couldn’t prove – or even assert – that Hillary Clinton took any official action because of contributions to the Clinton Foundation.”
Author Peter Schweizer, whose book Clinton Cash is due out May 5, took his best shot but couldn’t prove — or even assert — that Hillary Clinton took any official action because of contributions to the Clinton Foundation. I haven’t read the book, but even Schweizer concedes that what he’s identified is a ‘pattern of behavior,’ not hard evidence of corruption.
New Yorker: “Schweizer doesn’t back up his suggestions of wrongdoing with much in the way [of] concrete evidence.”
According to the New Yorker’s John Cassidy, “Not having read the book, which comes out on May 5th, I am relying on accounts from journalists who have. But if their versions of what the book contains are accurate, then Schweizer doesn’t back up his suggestions of wrongdoing with much in the way concrete evidence, which would allow the Clintons’ defenders to go on the offensive. Indeed, this is already happening. On MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ on Tuesday, David Brock, the founder of Media Matters, the liberal-leaning media watchdog, who recently appears to have morphed into a Clinton campaign spokesman, said, ‘I think this is a political put-up job, and I can smell it from a mile away.’
Schweizer Himself was forced to Admit He Had No Evidence to Back his Claims
Schweizer admitted that he had no “‘direct evidence’ of any impropriety.”
The author of a book alleging that some donors to the Clinton Foundation received favors while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state said Sunday that he did not have ‘direct evidence’ of any impropriety, but argued the ‘pattern of behavior’ required an investigation into Clinton’s record.
Fox News: “The author of ‘Clinton Cash’ acknowledged Sunday that his book has no evidence that Hillary Clinton as secretary of state directly influenced huge international deals in exchange for million-dollar contributions.”
The author of ‘Clinton Cash’ acknowledged Sunday that his book has no evidence that Hillary Clinton as secretary of state directly influenced huge international deals in exchange for million-dollar contributions to her family foundation but argued the numerous instances deserve an investigation.
The Hill: “Even Schweizer admits he has no smoking gun proving that either Hillary Clinton or former President Bill Clinton sought to further the interests of donors to the Clinton Foundation in improper ways.”
With the controversy around donations to her family’s charitable foundation growing, Democrats are bracing for more attacks on the former secretary of State — just the beginning of what they expect to be an 18-month assault on their party’s front-runner. […] Those attacks for now revolve around the upcoming book Clinton Cash by Peter Schweizer of the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Even Schweizer admits he has no smoking gun proving that either Hillary Clinton or former President Bill Clinton sought to further the interests of donors to the Clinton Foundation in improper ways.
Clinton Cash Contained a Number of Significant Errors that Further Disprove the Book’s False Allegations
An independent review of source material by ABC News uncovered errors in “Clinton Cash.”
An independent review of source material by ABC News uncovered errors in the book, including an instance where paid and unpaid speaking appearances were conflated. Schweitzer said the errors would be corrected. But those same records supported the premise that former President Clinton accepted speaking fees from numerous companies and individuals with interests pending before the State Department.
ThinkProgress: Schweizer relied on a fake press release in an attempt to support his debunked claims of a quid pro quo on the Keystone Pipeline.
Schweizer also fingers Bill Clinton’s speaking fees, a favorite target in conservative circles, as a potential avenue to influence Hillary. He links the timing of the State Department’s generally positive report on the Keystone XL Pipeline with a slew of Clinton speeches paid for by TD Bank, a major shareholder in the project. As proof of how crucial Clinton’s support for the pipeline was to the bank, Schweizer quotes a press release that claimed TD Bank would ‘begin selling its $1.6 billion worth of shares in the massive but potentially still-born Keystone XL crude pipeline project’ after Clinton left office. The press release was quickly revealed to be fake in 2013. Yet Schweizer, apparently unaware of the hoax, remarks, ‘Too bad for TD Bank. But the Clintons got paid regardless.’
Schweizer incorrectly claimed President Clinton was paid for three speeches for which he actually received no compensation, further disproving claims of special treatment.
In the book’s chapter on Haiti, dubbed ‘Disaster Capitalism Clinton-Style,’ which was obtained by BuzzFeed News, Schweizer writes that O’Brien, whose company Digicel was attempting to secure a contract for mobile phone service in Haiti, paid Clinton $600,000 for speeches in Ireland on Sept. 29, 2010, Oct. 8, 2011, and Oct. 9, 2013. Schweizer argues ‘the timing of these paid speeches is notable’ because they came during the contract awarding process — and goes on to note that starting in 2011 Digicel began receiving contracts in Haiti that would total $2 million from USAID, the first time the company had received grants from the organization. Schweizer also cites a fourth speech in the book that he says occurred in October 2011 in Kingston, Jamaica, just weeks before Digicel received its first grant. But according to Clinton spokesperson Matt McKenna, neither the former president nor the Clinton Foundation was paid for two of the three speeches Clinton gave in Ireland, and that while the Foundation did receive a donation following his Sept. 29, 2010 speech, Clinton himself was not compensated.
The book incorrectly reported that Hillary Clinton supported a particular amendment when she actually voted against it.
In 2005, the Indian government wanted those restrictions lifted. Hillary Clinton at that time supported a killer amendment to stop that from happening. After 2005, a number of Indian interests, including an Indian politician that admits now that his donation to the Clinton Foundation wasn’t even his money, those donations flowed. In 2008, she reverses course, and supports the export of U.S. nuclear technology.’ While Clinton’s India stance evolved over the years, a review of then-Sen. Clinton’s statements and votes while the Indian nuclear deal was under debate shows that two key facts in Schweizer’s argument on the topic are false, as Clinton actually publicly stated her support for the deal in 2006 and in fact voted against a ‘killer amendment’ that the book reports she supported.
Amazon Had to Alert Purchasers of “Significant Revisions” Due to Numerous Errors
Amazon alerted purchasers of the book that “significant revisions” were made to correct “seven or eight” passages that were incorrect.
Amazon on Tuesday blasted out an alert to purchasers of the book — which investigates connections between the Clinton Foundation donors and Hillary Clinton’s work at the State Department, and debuted at no. 2 on the New York Times’ bestseller list for the week of March 24 — notifying them that ‘significant revisions have been made.’ ‘An updated version of your past Kindle purchase…is now available,’ reads the email. ‘The updated version contains the following changes: Significant revisions have been made.’ Schweizer corrected ‘seven or eight’ passages that were revealed to be inaccurate after the book was released, according to publisher HarperCollins.