CNN senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny reported that one of Hillary’s advisers referred to “Clinton Cash” as “as a fire that we need to put out” on Tuesday’s “CNN Newsroom.”
“This [“Clinton Cash”] is what one adviser referred to me as a fire that we need to put out. This is the first time the Clinton campaign has responded as aggressively across the board, in an interview last night with the top Democrat on their campaign, John Podesta, through surrogates all day long. This is the first test of the Clinton response, and they don’t necessarily believe — and they say there’s not any smoking gun in the book, but they are worried about the whole discussion of trust and credibility. So, this is the first example of something they are trying to push back on aggressively, so we’ll see if that works.”
Earlier, CNN National Political Reporter Peter Hamby said that the Clintons have “for years, and years, and years have worked to fend off attacks from the right. And also characterize legitimate criticisms from Republicans as fringe attacks. That’s what they’re going to try to do with this book.” He added that author Peter Schweizer is a “conservative scholar,” but also “recently partnered with ’60 Minutes’ on a story about insider trading in Congress [and is] partnering with the New York Times and other organizations with this book, which lends a veneer of credibility to it, in addition to the fact that, look, even before this book popped yesterday in the news, there were already questions about donations to the Clinton Foundation. The Washington Post did a big story about this in February, looking at whether foreign governments, including Algeria, were able to sort of get access to the State Department while Clinton was Secretary of State with donations to the Clinton Foundation. So look, the question of whether or not there’s a quid pro quo is what is ultimately going to be at issue here, was there something specific that donations to the Clinton Foundation, to the Clintons, whether through speaking fees, or otherwise got them while Clinton was Secretary of State. That’s a legitimate question, regardless of who the author is, left or right. So look, they’re going to continue to fend off the book by saying it’s just yet another book in a long line of conservative books, but I don’t think questions about her time at the Foundation are going away. In part, Carol, because of that e-mail scandal. Remember, she gave 50,000 emails over, back to the State Department from her private server, but she also deleted a bunch, which again, feeds into various theories about maybe she’s trying to hide something from investigators.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett