Rand Paul Exploits Explosive New Book on the Clintons

Kentucky Senator and Republican presidential hopeful Rand Paul is apparently worried that a book due out next month claiming to show that donations to the non-profit foundation former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had run with her husband affected U.S. policy, may have missed some of the juicy details. And he wants the public to help double-check.

Clinton Cash
Clinton Cash

Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich by conservative writer Peter Schweizer is said to document ties between large cash payments from foreign countries to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation and policy positions taken or supported by Hillary Clinton while she served as Secretary of State. The Clinton Foundation is a sort of umbrella organization that includes numerous Clinton programs, most prominently the Clinton Global Initiative, which hosts a high-profile meeting of government leaders every year. That meeting is taking place this year – surely by coincidence – on May 5, the same day Schweizer’s book will be released.

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The release of the book appears to be the source of a number of cryptic comments Paul has made over the past weeks about a looming revelation that would rock Hillary Clinton’s recently-confirmed candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. And by early accounts, it might.

The book, a detailed investigation, claims that large donations to the Clinton Foundation by foreign donors and hefty speaking fees paid to the former president coincided with actions by the State Department that were favorable to the donors. The clear implication is that as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was for sale.

Clinton’s campaign has already begun to push back against the book’s claims, with representatives painting it as yet another in the admittedly long list of anti-Clinton investigations that have been published over the past two decades. They also note that Schweizer, a fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution, is biased against Clinton.

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The New York Times, which obtained a copy of Clinton Cash, says Schweizer “meticulously documents his sources, including tax records and government documents.” The Times also said that Clinton Cash “is proving the most anticipated and feared book of a presidential cycle still in its infancy.”

Nevertheless, Paul is taking no chances. The Kentucky senator has been using social media to drive traffic to a page on his campaign website titled “Liberty, Not Hillary,” which asks, “Do you have additional information about the Clinton Foundation accepting foreign contributions?”

Visitors who do are urged to give Paul their name, ZIP code, email address, and to lay out the specifics of the information they are offering. While the solicitation might yield new revelations about the Clintons, it seems unlikely.

The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Fox News have all made “exclusive” agreements with the author to “pursue the story lines found in the book.” While it’s unclear how story lines can be rendered exclusive, it seems likely that the main stream media will descend on this latest potential Clinton scandal en masse, making the efforts of Paul’s citizen journalists unnecessary.

While he may turn up little new dirt on Hillary Clinton, Paul’s effort is likely to be a small goldmine for his campaign email list, and a way to identify and motivate potential volunteers.

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