A mudslinging, Murdoch-approved bestseller-in-the-making is ready to provide conservatives with their most potent fodder yet to cast the Clinton family foundation as a scandal-ridden disqualifier to the presidency, even as Hillary Clinton clings to waning early leads in the polls – and seeks to grab back the spotlight from Republicans.
The book – Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich – is to be published in early May by HarperCollins, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. It alleges that foreign donors who made contributions to the Clinton Foundation received favorable policy treatment at the State Department, the New York Times reported on Sunday.
While the Clinton Foundation has long been the subject of controversy for accepting donations from foreign governments, Republican presidential candidates and rightwing bloggers quickly seized on the book as an exposé to succeed Clinton’s use of a private email server as their campaign scandal of the moment.
“You ever hear ’em ask Hillary Clinton, this money she’s getting, whether it influences her decisions?” Kentucky senator Rand Paul, who has been hinting at new Clinton revelations for weeks, told an anti-abortion group on Friday. “There’s going to be stuff coming out about the Clinton Foundation and their donations from different companies that get special approval from the secretary of state. Coming out in the next couple of weeks.”
Paul is even soliciting information on Clinton Foundation donations through his campaign website.
A spokesman for Marco Rubio, who has also been briefed on the book and is a member of the Senate foreign relations committee, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Clinton’s campaign has, on numerous occasions, dismissed speculation over the nonprofit’s internal dealings as conservative propaganda. The reaction has been no different from the theories floated in Peter Schweizer’s book, with campaign officials pointing to the author’s background at conservative thinktanks to frame him as highly partisan.
That hasn’t stopped conservative websites like the Drudge Report from declaring “IT BEGINS” or Breitbart News from blaring From ‘Dead Broke’ to $$$,$$$,$$$: Clinton Cash ‘Most Anticipated and Feared Book of Presidential Cycle’.
Clinton has been dogged by questions over potential conflicts of interest at the foundation, which announced last week it would limit donations from foreign governments. Clinton resigned from the group’s board of directors almost immediately after the formal launch of her presidential campaign.
But Republicans, who are seeking to define Clinton as an elitist and creature of Washington, are going all-in on the foundation through attack ads and at conservative gatherings in early battleground states. During a speech at a Republican summit in New Hampshire on Saturday, Paul dinged Clinton as needing two campaign planes – “one for her and her entourage, and one for her baggage”.
A new CNN poll released on Monday continues to show most Republican candidates trailing Clinton, whose numbers waned only slightly following revelations that she used private email while serving as secretary of state. Negative opinions of Clinton have largely risen among Republicans, but most troubling perhaps for the Democratic frontrunner is the ongoing reality that fewer than half of Americans believe she is honest and trustworthy.
In the Clinton Cash book, Schweizer focuses on scandal. He cites “a free-trade agreement in Colombia that benefited a major foundation donor’s natural resource investments in the South American nation, development projects in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake in 2010, and more than $1m in payments to Mr Clinton by a Canadian bank and major shareholder in the Keystone XL oil pipeline around the time the project was being debated in the State Department,” the New York Times reported.
Schweizer’s editor says the book coins a new term: the Clinton Blur. “Schweizer’s exhaustively researched book raises serious questions about the sources of the Clintons’ sudden wealth, their ethical judgment, and Hillary’s fitness for high public office,” he said in a press release.
A spokeswoman for HarperCollins did not immediately respond to a list of questions from the Guardian.
To counter the public scrutiny over her every move, Clinton has embarked on a “listening tour” in early swing states – Iowa last week, and New Hampshire beginning on Monday – to connect with voters on a personal level. She has largely deflected matters on foreign policy, and instead focused on making a domestic pitch, centered on the economy and income inequality. On Monday, she will take that message to a children’s furniture factory in Keene, New Hampshire.
A campaign aide said Clinton’s two-day swing through New Hampshire will mirror her activities in Iowa and include roundtables with students, educators and employees, as well as private meetings with activists, community leaders and elected officials.
At least one Democrat, former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, is slowly emerging as a potential challenger to Clinton – and her economic message. Even as polls show the former secretary of state trouncing other Democratic contenders in a hypothetical primary, O’Malley has begun citing differences between him and Clinton on issues such as the minimum wage, social security benefits and a major trade deal brokered by the Obama administration that has irked progressives.
“I’ve been an executive and a progressive executive with a record of accomplishments,” O’Malley said in an interview with NPR broadcast on Monday. “I think contrasts will become apparent.”
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