Her enemies finally found it. Forget Benghazi, emails, Vince Foster, or Whitewater. This is the scandal that will bring Hillary down. And you have to admit, it does sound pretty sleazy when you first hear about … “Clinton Cash!”
On one hand, here is former President Bill Clinton, raking in millions of dollars from foreign governments and corporations for his charitable foundation. On the other hand, there’s his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, making sweetheart deals with those very same governments and corporations on behalf of the United States.
How tacky can you get? It’s all spelled out in Peter Schweizer’s new book, “Clinton Cash,” which doesn’t come out until May 5, but whose allegations have already been leaked to, and reported breathlessly by, Fox News, the New York Times and the Washington Post. There’s only one problem. As Gertrude Stein famously said of Oakland, “There’s no there there.”
Yes, I admit, I haven’t yet read the book. Again, it doesn’t come out till May 5. But I’ve scoured everything the Post and Times have published about it. And, once you plow through a thicket of “maybes” and “what ifs” and “if she did thats,” you’re left with nothing but pure speculation.
The most serious of Schweizer’s accusations centers around a complicated uranium deal in which the Russian atomic energy agency Rosatom was able to take over a Canadian company and become one of the leading uranium producers in the world – but only after winning necessary approval of nine different U.S. government agencies, including the U.S. State Department. During the time Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state, the head of that Canadian company also made donations totaling $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation. Sounds fishy, doesn’t it? Was this a quid pro quo? Did Bill tell Hillary to approve the deal, as Schweizer implies? Did Hillary lobby her fellow Cabinet members to get a unanimous vote? Or did she even know about the deal? The truth is, we don’t know.
In fact, after spelling out the facts of the deal in excruciating detail and suggesting the worst kind of “pay to play,” the New York Times could only conclude: “Whether the donations played any role in the approval of the uranium deal is unknown.” The Times goes on to lament that the Clinton Foundation will continue to accept contributions from foreign sources – get this! – “whose interests may overlap with those of foreign governments, some of which may be at odds with the United States.”
Now, even if I want to believe the worst about Hillary, knowing that any link between Bill’s activities and her role as secretary of state is “unknown” and being told that conflicts “may” occur but not necessarily “did” occur, does not exactly build a strong case against her. In fact, it builds no case against her at all. Schweizer’s line of attack was even further weakened on April 26 when he appeared on ABC’s “This Week” and demanded that Hillary’s connection to the Clinton Foundation be the subject of a federal criminal investigation.
After quoting Bill Allison of the Sunlight Foundation that “There’s no smoking gun, no evidence that she changed the policy based on donations to the foundation,” George Stephanopoulos asked Schweizer directly: “Is there a smoking gun?” And the best Schweizer could offer was a circular defense: “Yes. The smoking gun is in the pattern of behavior,” which “warrants further investigation because … this is part of the broader pattern” – which, of course, is the smoking gun. Translation: There is no smoking gun.
Having conducted its own investigation of Schweizer’s explosive charges, Time magazine concluded: “The suggestion of outside influence over U.S. decision-making is based on little evidence. … A former State Department official who participated in the deal’s approval told Time that Clinton did not weigh in on the uranium sale one way or the other.”
Granted, it’s legitimate to raise questions about the Clinton Foundation’s fundraising activities. Why were foreign corporations and governments showering the former president with such massive windfalls of cash when Hillary was secretary of state? Was it purely out of charity, or were they hoping to buy influence with his wife? Did the foundation fail to report all contributions, as previously agreed? Schweizer’s good at raising questions and making wild assumptions, but he fails to back them up with any evidence.
In the end, this foreign-cash scandal is nothing but an instant replay of Benghazi: lots of wild allegations about Hillary, but no proof of wrongdoing.
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