Saturday on CNN’s “Smerconish,” Media Matters founder David Brock, a supporter of presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, discussed the allegations of improprieties regarding the Clinton Foundation, in particular accepting donations from foreign governments that were lobbying for favorable treatment by the United States while Clinton was secretary of state.
The allegations, which are assumed to be part of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s speech on Clinton, were laid out in Breitbart editor at large Peter Schweizer’s “Clinton Cash” and dismissed by Brock.
“Look, I think these charges were aired more than a year ago,” Brock said. “A lot — you know, every major media outlet in the country that I could see look into the allegations raised in the book to the questions that were raised and they all concluded that there’s no there, there. That there’s no evidence that the money influenced decisions. And in fact, in the specifics that are raised on the uranium case and the interagency process, the appointee in that interagency process from State says they never spoke to Hillary Clinton about it. So on the facts, just wrong. But I think the bigger question is you led with Donald Trump. Is this Donald Trump’s playbook? And if it is, he’s going to come up short, just as the author of this book came up short a year ago. Donald Trump is certainly the wrong messenger for anti-corruption story and the Clinton Foundation tried to help people in need. Look at that compared to Trump University and the scam that was pulled.”
Host Michael Smerconish pointed out that the allegations were not without merit and pointed to mainstream media outlets including The New York Times and The Washington Post taking them seriously.
“They did,” Brock replied. “Sure, and in fact, they built on it, but what did they come up with? They didn’t come up with anything more than what he came up with. The book was taken seriously by the mainstream media. Look, Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal took leads from the book and looked in it for months and found quote, ‘no wrongdoing.’ So the book has been aired. It’s had its days in the sun and it did nothing.”
Smerconish said he didn’t put Schweizer’s “Clinton Cash” in the same category as “the crap” about Vince Foster, to which Brock agreed. However, Brock said when Trump uses them in his speech, he anticipates his pro-Clinton super PAC Correct the Record will respond with a fact check in “real time.”
“I tell you how we’ll respond,” he said. “We’re going to fact check that speech in real time and we know that Donald Trump is factually challenged if nothing else. The things he’s thrown out about the Clintons to date have come out of just scurrilous tabloids. I don’t know if he’s going to use this book as part of his playbook, but we’re going to fact check him in real time and then we’re going to raise the issues that need to be raised about Donald Trump on the issue of corruption. The Politico did an investigation just weeks ago and found ties to the organized crime to the Russian mob. Let’s talk about his foreign ties. Who are his foreign investors? He wants to talk about – you know, the reason we know all this is they are 100 percent transparent. Where are Donald Trump’s tax returns? That’s what we’re going to see on Monday, Michael.”
When asked if it would have been better if the Clinton Foundation had not accepted foreign donations, Brock said there was a need for foreign money because it was a “global initiative.”
“I think you have to take foreign money. It’s a global initiative,” he added. “I think you have to take the foreign money and the protocols were set up at the State Department and they were followed.”
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