CNN anchor Jake Tapper has interviewed Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on at least four separate occasions since she announced her White House bid last June — but has yet to ask the former Secretary of State a single question concerning the alarming allegations laid out in meticulous detail in the New York Times best-selling book Clinton Cash, written by Government Accountability Institute President and Breitbart Senior Editor-at-Large Peter Schweizer.
Tapper, an alumnus of ABC News and Salon.com, interviewed Clinton last October, once in February, again in April, and earlier this month. Each time, he failed to ask the Democratic presidential frontrunner about the donations received by Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea’s Clinton Foundation from foreign governments and foreign individuals while she was Secretary of State.
In the days leading up to its May 5, 2015 release, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich was regarded as the “most anticipated and feared book of a presidential cycle,” according to the New York Times. In fact, the Times, Washington Post, and Fox News all jumped off the book’s various leads to conduct their own investigations of the Clintons’ global financial network.
One month after the book launch, Tapper’s own news network CNN concluded from its polling that the “Clinton Cash Effect” has resulted in Hillary facing historically low favorability with American voters.
Yet despite its mainstream penetration (debuting at #2 on the Times Bestseller List), Tapper has not put forth one question about Schweizer’s allegations — even though he interviewed Hillary at least three separate times after it was reported that the FBI expanded its probe of her to include “public corruption” involving the Clinton Foundation.
To be sure, Tapper has asked Clinton tough questions and fact-checked false claims from her, breaking the mold of his employer — often called the “Clinton News Network” for its treatment of Hillary. During a sit-down interview, Tapper brought up the ongoing investigation into Clinton’s use of a private server for official State Department business.
Recently, Tapper took Clinton to task and embarrassed the former Secretary over the repeated claim that her use of a private email system was “absolutely permitted.”
And still — perhaps crumbling to the Clintons as a precondition for his face-to-face interviews — Tapper has not shown the boldness to bring up this other major issue for Hillary’s campaign. Why not? A Former U.S. Attorney has stated that FBI agents investigating Clinton’s email server were immediately ordered to read Schweizer’s book; the two issues are linked — at least, apparently, in the eyes of federal agents.
What’s more, Clinton Cash remains a massive elephant in the room as the Democratic National Convention approaches.
In the weeks since a Clinton Cash film adaptation premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, dozens of media — from the left, right, and center — have touted the documentary as a heatseeking missile headed straight for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
The Guardian, which is no conservative news outlet, said of the new documentary: “As with the book, the film contains nuggets that point to areas of conduct on the part of the Clintons that are certainly worthy of further investigation, all the more so the closer Hillary Clinton gets to the White House.”
Then, after Cannes, the FBI revealed an investigation into close Clinton operative and Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, specifically in connection with a Chinese billionaire known for donating millions to the Clinton Foundation.
Surely, these facts constitute enough reasons to ask a candidate seeking America’s highest office some pointed questions concerning the allegations against her. If the Clinton camp is demanding that it goes off the table before Hillary will sit down for another interview, they have no leverage. All signs point to immense interest from the public, fellow journalists, and even law enforcement.
If writing the questions is the real obstacle to this line of inquiry, Breitbart News has already round up nearly two dozen on his behalf from the pages of the New York Times, the Huffington Post, and the Associated Press, among many others.
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @jeromeehudson
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