Monday in an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” Breitbart editor at large Peter Schweizer, executive producer of the documentary based on his bestselling book “Clinton Cash,” discussed the movie that investigated how former President Bill Clinton and his wife, 2016 Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton went from being “dead broke” after leaving the White House to amassing a net worth of nearly $200 million.
Schweizer notes how much of the government influence and power “peddling” in this investigation isn’t done domestically, but instead was aimed at foreign governments and corporations.
“Well, the film really walks people through very real examples of how the Clintons have basically become wealthy by peddling government influence and power,” he said. “What’s interesting about the story is we’re not talking about Wall Street or large oil companies in the United States. We’re talking about foreign governments and foreign corporations. That, I think, is what is so shocking about what the Clintons have done that’s unprecedented with any political figures in American history.”
Schweizer explained that the Clintons have continued this pattern of behavior because they have “gotten away with it” in the past and still continued pushing the limit despite facing heightened media attention with Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
“It’s hard to get into their heads, but what I would speculate and say is, look, there has been a pattern of behavior with the Clintons for a long time going back to when Bill was president, when he was governor of Arkansas,” Schweizer said. “They always play it very, very close ethically in this way, and they’ve gotten away with it. They haven’t paid the price. So, I think when she became secretary of state, America’s chief diplomat, they basically viewed it as an opportunity to cash in. You gave that figure that they’ve had $200 million of income from 2001 to the present. From 2007 to the present, it was $170 million of that. So they were doing pretty good before she became secretary of state. Once she became secretary of state, Bill’s speaking fees tripled. The amounts and the quantity that they got from overseas went through the roof. They cashed in. there is just no other way to say it.”
The Breitbart editor at large pointed to the drastic rise of former President Bill Clinton’s speaking fees upon Hillary Clinton being confirmed to be President Barack Obama’s secretary of state.
“I mean, look, every president since Eisenhower what they left the White House has hit the lecture circuit,” he continued. “And I in principle don’t have a problem with that. The problem is when your wife is a diplomat and your speaking fees, Bill Clinton’s triple overnight and you’ve got people like Nigeria and Russia showing up offering you $700,000 for a single speech when they weren’t interested in having you speak before, and these same people have things sitting on her desk at the State Department and you just take the money? It’s ridiculous. They know precisely what’s going on.”
One of the vehicles Schweizer noted is being used by the Clintons as a means to peddle favors has been through their charitable foundation, which Schweizer argued met Hillary Clinton’s own technical definition of bribery.
“The foundation is also a means for influencing the Clintons,” he added. “Look, if you are a foreign government or a foreign corporation, you can’t give to Hillary Clinton’s political campaigns. You can’t give to the super PAC, but you can give to the foundation. And by the way, Hillary Clinton herself set up international ethical standards that said bribery includes not just money give to political figures but given to their charities. So just because money flows to the Clinton Foundation, it is still a bribe if it’s done for the purpose of influence, and I think the pattern is pretty clear that this money is being thrown at the Clintons because they want favors in return, and they are getting favors in return.”
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