Hillary Clinton can condemn Republicans as her “enemies,” dismiss the Veterans Administration scandal as “not widespread,” and get caught lying about what she knew about Benghazi and when she knew it — but the mainstream media doesn’t seem to give a damn.
They’ve ignored those stories in favor of articles about how Hillary has come through her email scandal with flying colors. They’ve crowned her as her party’s presidential nominee three months before the first primary caucus. And they’ve given her a pass on all the other scandals that tarnished her tenure as secretary of state.
This is exactly what Sen. Marco Rubio meant when he said: “The Democrats have the ultimate Super PAC: It’s called the mainstream media.”
It’s about time these reporters got serious about covering Hillary and redeemed their reputation.
With that in mind, I hereby offer a guide to five Hillary stories that haven’t gotten the proper coverage they deserve.
1. The Clinton Foundation scandal
In my book “Unlikeable: The Problem with Hillary,” I interviewed people who had firsthand knowledge of Hillary’s unethical — and perhaps illegal — conflict of interest between her official role as secretary of state and her private interests in the Clinton Foundation.
One of these people, a veteran Foreign Service officer, described a trip on the secretary of state’s Air Force C-32. “Hillary took along stacks of papers in manila folders that were marked ‘CF’ and ‘CGO’ — the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative,” this person said. “They had dividers labeled ‘Donations,’ ‘Fund Raising,’ ‘AIDS/HIV,’ ‘Haiti,’ and so forth.”
Another interviewee, an intern at Foggy Bottom, described how he was ordered to gather up Clinton Foundation fundraising papers strewn all over Hillary’s conference table after a meeting. Among those who attended that meeting about foundation business were Hillary’s chief aides, Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills.
2. The uranium sale scandal
During her time at the State Department, Hillary voted to approve the sale of more than 20 percent of the United States’ uranium production capacity to Rosatom, the Russian atomic energy agency.
While the deal was going through, the company behind the uranium sale made four donations to the Clinton Foundation totaling $2.5 million. And shortly before the deal was finalized, Bill Clinton was invited to Moscow, where he was paid $500,000 to give a speech.
In total, Bill Clinton made almost $48 million in speaking fees while his wife was secretary of state.
3. The younger brother scandal
While Hillary was secretary of state, her younger brother, Tony Rodham, was appointed to the advisory board of VCS Mining, a US-based company that received a gold-mining contract in Haiti.
At the time, Bill Clinton was the UN special envoy to Haiti, and Hillary had a decisive say over America’s multimillion-dollar relief efforts in that earthquake-ravaged country.
Tony Rodham admitted that he met the chief executive of VCS Mining at a meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative. “I deal through the Clinton Foundation,” Tony told a reporter. “That gets me in touch with the Haitian officials. I hound my brother-in-law, because it’s his fund that we’re going to get our money from.”
4. The son-in-law scandal
Bill and Hillary were never enthusiastic about Chelsea’s 2010 marriage to Marc Mezvinksy, whose father, Edward, spent 80 months in prison for bank, mail and wire fraud. But when Chelsea announced she was pregnant in the spring of 2014, the Clintons’ attitude toward Marc underwent a noticeable change.
Marc became more than a friend of the Clinton family; he was now a friend with benefits. He met with a series of wealthy investors who had close ties to Bill and Hillary, including Lloyd C. Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, which had paid Bill millions of dollars for speeches. Some of the moneymen who invested heavily in Marc’s hedge fund, Eaglevale Partners, lost their shirts when his investments in Greek bank stocks went bust.
5. Hillary’s health scandal
In fact, Hillary’s uncertain health — including blinding headaches, dizziness, and a trembling in her hands — has forced her to cancel several meetings and cut back on her campaign schedule.
She tells friends that her doctors can’t find any definitive problem, but Bill Clinton is so worried about her health situation that he urged her to travel with a full-time doctor to prevent another fainting spell, which could doom her campaign for president.
Edward Klein’s latest book is “Unlikeable: The Problem with Hillary” (Regnery Publishing), out now.