Could "Clinton Cash" Attacks End Up Helping Hillary?

While Bill Clinton was president, a virtual cottage industry existed on the far right manufacturing supposed conspiracies, supposed murders and all kinds of attacks on Bill and Hillary Clinton.  None, of course, ever proved true, but those writing the attack books and articles in  many cases walked away with a nice profits as anti-Clinton fanatics happily shelled out money to buy the supposed expose' of moral and financial wrongdoing.  Now, with Hillary officially a presidential candidate we seem headed back to a reprise of the far right effort to attack Hillary and Bill Clinton.  The first book out of the box is “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich” by Peter Schweizer, a long time right wing operative who is now seemingly financed indirectly by the Koch brothers.  As a piece in The New Yorker notes, the book fails to deliver any real details and may ultimately work to help Hillary as opposed to damaging her politically as planned by the author.  Here are article excerpts:

On Monday night, Sean Hannity opened his show on Fox News by claiming that new developments had emerged that could derail Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign. He was referring to the revelation, in the Times, that an upcoming book, “Clinton Cash,” by Peter Schweizer, a conservative speechwriter and author, reportedly alleges that overseas donors to the Clinton Foundation, as well as foreign entities that paid Bill Clinton for speeches, received favors from the State Department while Hillary was in charge.

Many viewers of Hannity and other Fox programs will probably seize on the new book in order to confirm their view that Hillary Clinton is unworthy of the Presidency. But none of these people were going to vote for her anyway. Politically, the important question is what impact, if any, the book’s allegations will have on independent voters, who may or may not vote for Clinton, and also on liberal Democrats who are inclined to vote for her, and maybe even to campaign for her, but who still have some reservations.

On this front, my guess is that “Clinton Cash” (whose full title is “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich”) could end up benefitting Hillary. With Hannity and other conservative media figures piling on, the Clinton campaign will be able to portray questions about the Clinton Foundation and the family’s finances as a political witch-hunt rather than a legitimate exercise in vetting Presidential candidates. And if that happens, many Americans may end up dismissing the whole thing as a partisan squabble.

[R]elying on accounts from journalists . . . . . 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.

[M]ost of Schweizer’s writing appears to have been directed at Democrats, and he is clearly a man of the right. In 2011, the Times reported that he was advising Sarah Palin on foreign policy. Brock, during his appearance on MSNBC, claimed that the Government Accountability Institute has received funding from entities affiliated with the Koch brothers, adding, “It’s subsidized by Hillary Clinton’s enemies.” On Tuesday night, according to Politico’s Gabriel Debenedetti, Brian Fallon, Clinton’s press secretary, circulated a memo to the campaign’s surrogates and allies, echoing Brock’s charges. “The book was backed by a Koch Brothers–linked organization and a billionaire family that is bankrolling Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign,” Fallon wrote.

It will be one thing if Schweizer has the goods on the Clintons—i.e., detailed evidence supporting his claim that policy decisions were influenced by financial donations and speaking fees. But, despite Rand Paul’s claims, it doesn’t sound as though the book will supply that level of detail.  

Aviva Shen, a senior editor at Think Progress—which is published by the Center for American Progress, a Democratic think tank with ties to the Clintons—writes, “Schweizer makes clear that he does not intend to present a smoking gun, despite the media speculation. . . . Schweizer explains he cannot prove the allegations, leaving that up to investigative journalists and possibly law enforcement.

[T]hings could get tricky for journalists covering the Clinton donations. Every word they write will be doubly scrutinized for evidence of political bias, and Hillary Clinton’s campaign operatives will be on hand to dismiss as part of a G.O.P.-inspired vendetta anything that is critical of the candidate. Until this week, it was easy to label such tactics as political spin, and few fair-minded people questioned the credibility of the Clinton money stories or the motivations of those writing and publishing them. Now that Schweizer has entered the fray, with the likes of Hannity and Paul to ballyhoo what appear to be largely unsubstantiated allegations, partisan politics is likely to color the views of the broader public. If and when Hillary Clinton falls back on the old argument that it’s all a right-wing conspiracy against her and her family, many people might well be prepared to take her at her word.

As I said, it looks like we can expect a reprise of breathless and hysterical stories about Clinton misdeeds.  Like the, I suspect little will actually be documented and the far right will go into a frenzy with authors such as Schweizer laughing all the way to the bank.