Republican governor cautions GOP over "Clinton Cash" knocks
Journalist Peter Schweizer set off a firestorm last week with revelations from his forthcoming "Clinton Cash" book, which allegedly exposes ties to the Clinton Foundation's foreign donors and favors granted by the State Department during Hillary Clinton's tenure.
Since the Monday reveal of Schweizer's key findings, several Republican heavyweights have chimed in on the controversy: Presidential candidate and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul promised that the "Clinton Cash" revelations would be "alarming" and "mind-boggling." Texas Sen. Ted Cruz released a statement Friday saying that the disclosures "create more doubt about whether the former Secretary of State can be trusted." And former Hewlett-Packard executive Carly Fiorina bashed the former first lady on Facebook, calling the scandal just another lesson in "the Clinton way."
But a Republican governor -- one who presides over the Clintons' home state -- is urging his GOP colleagues to employ caution when criticizing the former secretary of state.
There's "no evidence of a quid pro quo," Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Sunday on NBC News. "Republicans need to be careful not to overstate the case."
Rather, what the Clinton Foundation's donor base shows, according to Hutchinson, is "it reminds everyone that everything about the Clintons is complicated."
The organization itself has conceded to this complication: In a website post Sunday, the Foundation acknowledged that they "made mistakes" when disclosing donors to the IRS. The admission followed a recent Reuters report that the philanthropy intended to refile tax forms from recent years.
"This story has three ramifications that bear looking at," the Republican governor continued. "Awful, ungodly amount of money involved in these transactions. It involves a foreign source. And then it involves high positions in government and important decisions."
The "Clinton Cash" author, Peter Schweizer, also joined the Sunday talk shows to flesh out a defense of his expose.
"The point that we make in the book is that there is a troubling pattern," Schweizer told ABC News. "Some people, I think particularly the Clinton camp, would say that these are all coincidence. I don't think, when you're talking about 12 instances, you're talking coincidence. I think you're talking trend."
When pressed, the Breitbart journalist admitted that "the smoking gun is in the pattern of behavior," rather than solid evidence of a quid pro quo exchange.
"Most people that engage in criminal insider trading don't send an email that says I've got inside information, buy this stock," Schweizer said, comparing the Clinton controversy to the criminal activity of insider trading. "The way they look at it, they look at a pattern of stock trades. If the person has access to that information and they do a series of well-timed trades, that warrants investigation."
"Clinton Cash" will hit the shelves May 5th.