It is a mistake for supporters of Bill and Hillary Clinton to write off conservative author Peter Schweizer as a "right-wing hack," argues veteran Washington journalist Eleanor Clift.
Writing in the Daily Beast, the liberal-leaning Clift, who has defended the Clintons in the past, warns that such attacks on Schweizer, author of the forthcoming book "Clinton Cash," are untrue and doomed to fail.
If Schweizer "were as off-base as the campaign and its allies portray him, would a high-quality publication like The New York Times risk its reputation by partnering with him?" Clift asks. "And would Common Cause, the gold standard for good-government groups, which is currently chaired by former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich, be calling for an independent review that would be made public of all large donations to the Clinton Foundation?"
According to Clift, the Clintons' "standard template" for pushing back against critics is to "make questions about their finances seem part of the vast right-wing conspiracy."
Clift believes that if Schweizer's book is able to survive the scrutiny it will receive from the mainstream media, then Mrs. Clinton, the Democrats' 2016 presidential frontrunner, will be forced "to clean up her act."
Aside from "actual wrongdoing, and there's no evidence of that, this is about the appearance of conflicts of interest, and in politics, appearances are everything," Clift writes.
The most troubling questions center on foreign money going into the Clinton family foundation, and whether any of it ended benefiting her presidential campaign,
according to Clift, who has been in the Washington journalism business for over half a century.
Should the former secretary of state be elected president, the key question is whether foreign friends that have aided the Clinton Foundation and paid the Clintons huge honoraria for speeches would receive preferential treatment.
As evidence of his Schweizer's credibility, Clift points to an earlier book he wrote titled,
"Throw Them All Out," which exposed evidence of insider training by Democrats and Republicans in Congress, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and current House Speaker John Boehner.
The CBS program "60 Minutes" partnered with Schweizer to produce a "blockbuster" story that led to bipartisan passage of legislation to ban insider trading by members of Congress, Clift said.
Despite his conservative bona fides, Schweizer "is an equal opportunity investigator, snaring Republicans as well as Democrats." He is reportedly planning to follow "Clinton Cash" with "a similar exposé of 'Bush Cash,'" she writes.
The Bush exposé would focus on business deals made by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush since leaving office in 2007.
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