This is a partial transcript from “Hannity & Colmes,” October 13, 2006, that has been edited for larity.
ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: “The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy’s Dossier on Hillary Clinton” is a new book that claims New York senator and presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has been stuffing her war chest full of foreign dollars. The explosive new book also claims that scores of dollars have been pouring in from questionable sources, including from communists and terrorists! — I’m shocked.
Joining us now, the author of this book, Amanda Carpenter.
And here’s what you’re saying. You say the CEO — but why the smear piece on Hillary Clinton, by the way?
AMANDA CARPENTER, AUTHOR: This is absolutely not a smear piece.
COLMES: Oh, come on. It’s exactly a smear piece.
CARPENTER: I want to tell the people right now, when they go to the bookstore, don’t even read my words first. Look in the back of the appendix of the book. Right there in the back, we have her tax forms that show all of the international places where Bill Clinton has been raising money that is available for her campaign.
COLMES: All right. Let me give you an example of one of the arguments.
CARPENTER: Go ahead.
COLMES: You say the CEO of a company that Bill Clinton addressed was at one time a committee member in the Chinese government and that, because that advances Clinton’s family income, which, of course, they can be used for races, you accuse her of using “communist cash.” This is like a McCarthyite tactic…
CARPENTER: It absolutely is not.
COLMES: This is like a McCarthy tactic, “communist cash”…
(CROSSTALK)
CARPENTER: I’m going to cut you off right now, but right now — she is not using the money. The fact is right now is that it is available for her campaign. And the fact is that Bill Clinton has been paid more than $20 million from foreign interests…
COLMES: Right. Good for him. You don’t believe in capitalism?
CARPENTER: … from the People’s Republic of China, from Dubai, from places in Colombia that — more than $20 million…
(CROSSTALK)
COLMES: … ports deal…
(CROSSTALK)
COLMES: … that same Dubai?
CARPENTER: Hillary Clinton has gotten rich from foreign money and corporations, knowing this, knowing that it’s available for her campaign, knowing that I asked her personally on Capitol Hill in my work for “Human Events” if she would use her personal money. She dismissed it. She won’t deny it. It’s available.
COLMES: She might.
CARPENTER: She can’t be trusted…
(CROSSTALK)
COLMES: … you have eight pages of an indictment of David Rosen, who was Hillary’s campaign finance director. But how many pages do you devote to the fact that he was cleared of all charges in 2005? How many pages of that did you have?
CARPENTER: The reason that I included all the information is because it tells the story of a 2000 gala that she used…
COLMES: Did you mention he was cleared of all charges?
CARPENTER: Oh, it’s in the back.
COLMES: In the back of the book. OK.
(CROSSTALK)
CARPENTER: Well, the fact is, she paid the money, $35,000 fine, to the…
(CROSSTALK)
COLMES: But he was cleared. You don’t mention that upfront. You have eight pages of indictment…
CARPENTER: Because it tells the story.
COLMES: … but you leave out that he was cleared of all charges.
CARPENTER: I want people to know the facts.
COLMES: The facts are that he was cleared of all charges. Why do you leave that out?
CARPENTER: No, I don’t leave it out, absolutely not.
COLMES: Where, in the back of the book? Somebody’s got to…
(CROSSTALK)
CARPENTER: Her campaign was held at fault for that and said very clearly that David Rosen got off.
(CROSSTALK)
COLMES: She was not charged. She was not charged.
(CROSSTALK)
CARPENTER: … and paid $35,000 to the FEC as a fine.
LOWRY: I’m going to jump in here. Amanda, thanks so much for being with us.
CARPENTER: Thank you.
LOWRY: Congratulations on the book. And if you know anything about the Clintons, and especially that 1996 re-election campaign, this is a family with a lot of experience with Chinese funny money.
CARPENTER: Certainly. And this is why it’s very alarming that this kind of activity is still going on. We saw it when Hillary was first lady. And now that you see Bill Clinton doing all these things internationally and raising this kind of money, you realize that he is going to become the gatekeeper to her.
And the fact that he can go back in the White House and do this kind of stuff, and she — you know, you were talking about George Allen earlier making this kind of money from a stock. Where is Bill Clinton getting it? We have problems with Harry Reid. We have a problem with K Street. Bill Clinton is being lauded constantly by international interests. He is married to a U.S. senator that’s making policy.
LOWRY: I guarantee you this will be a huge issue if she’s actually a presidential candidate. There’s no doubt about it.
Now, look, you’ve written a whole book on Hillary Clinton, spent a lot of time with her, metaphorically at least. Were you able to determine her position on Iraq?
CARPENTER: She doesn’t have one.
LOWRY: OK.
CARPENTER: That’s a fact right now.
LOWRY: That’s quite a perspective.
CARPENTER: Now, one of the things I think is very interesting is that, in 2003 — well, first, we all know that she voted to authorize the president to go to war. She actually said Saddam Hussein has given aid and comfort to members ofAl Qaeda in her speech to go to war that was on the Senate floor. This is in congressional record. I have put that for you in the dossier.
LOWRY: I thought that was a Bush lie?
CARPENTER: Well, this is where it becomes interesting, because in 2003 she told The Washington Times that all the intelligence that the Bush administration was finding lined up with what she knew from previous administrations and that she had checked with trusted Clinton officials. This is on the record right now.
Now, when you hear liberals talk about how Bush allegedly lied us into war, notice you don’t see Hillary Clinton saying anything. And this is because DCI George Tenet, the director of central intelligence who gave Bush all this information, was appointed by her husband.
LOWRY: Yes.
CARPENTER: She supported this man, and this is a major problem for her. And I think we need to hold her accountable for it.
LOWRY: Yes, originally, both Bill and Hillary, they were pretty restrained in their rhetoric on the war. But now that they’ve seen the drift of events and seen where the rest of the party is going, now they’re beginning to radicalize their rhetoric, too.
I think the biggest problem she’ll have as a politician — and I think she’s a pretty smart and canny politician — is just that everything she does seems so calculated.
CARPENTER: Right. And I say one of her biggest problems, when I talk about this on the radio and things like that, is the candid candidate. You know, we kind of saw this with George Allen, and I really know from covering her on Capitol Hill that she can’t speak off-message. When you ask her one-on-one, every answer you get is, “I don’t know. I haven’t looked into it.” It’s because she has to check with her messaging.
So, you know, I think the media, if they do their job, they’re really aggressive, you know, it will make for a very interesting run because she can’t communicate freely.
COLMES: You know who we should hold accountable? The people who got us into the war. That’s who should be held accountable.
CARPENTER: George Tenet, appointed by…
LOWRY: And Hillary Clinton voted for it, right Alan?
(CROSSTALK)
COLMES: … I’ve got two words for you: Karl Rove. Anyway, thank you very much for being with us.
CARPENTER: Thank you.
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