Monday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” former strategist for President Bill Clinton’s campaigns James Carville expressed his disdain for what he called a “cockamamie” controversy over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton so-called email controversy.
Carville said, “It was legal. It wasn’t against regulations. Colin Powell and Jeb Bush did the same thing. But oh, my God, do you remember Whitewater? Do you remember Filegate? Do you remember Travelgate? Do you remember Pardongate? Do you remember Benghazi? All of this is just the same cooked up cockamamie stuff that we go through. The Times gets something from right wing talking points. They’ve got to walk the story back. The chin scratchers go ‘oh, my god.’ The story’s not right, but it says something larger about the Clinton. This is never going to end. We’ve lived with this for 20 years. We’ll live with it for the rest of the campaign. It’s all about nothing. That’s my view of the whole thing.”
A frustrated Andrea Mitchell shot back, “The fact is that Dianne Feinstein is not some Republican talking point. Dianne Feinstein said that she has to speak to this. That she has to address it. Others have, in fact, made that point off camera. Democrats are saying it to, you know, to every political reporter in town, that this should at least be addressed. Why?”
Carville replied, “You can go find a Democrat that says anything. My point is, this was legal in accordance with regulations. Colin Powell and Jeb Bush did the same thing. So I just don’t see, I don’t see the deal here. But next week there will be a different story. It’s a story about the foundation taking money from Middle East governments.”
Mitchell interrupted Carville, saying, “James, James, when Hillary Clinton was confirmed, she accepted a certain set of rules that there would not be foreign contributions while she was secretary of state. And as it turns out, as they’ve now acknowledged, she didn’t go along with the ethics waiver that she had accepted, number one. Number two — I mean, let’s take that. What about the foreign contributions?
Carville rebutted saying, “You know what? People have to decide. I think it was the government of Algeria that gave money to the Clinton/Bush Initiative for earthquake aid in Haiti. Take it and run with it as far as you want. Oh, my god, let’s all get out of breath here. Let’s go to a dinner party a scratch our chins and say oh, it’s not really that bad. But it says something larger about the Clintons. And let’s say that a certain standard applies to Colin Powell and Jeb Bush. Another standard applies to the Clintons.”
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