Will a 'feared' book damage Hillary's presidential hopes?

We're in week two of Democrat Hillary Clinton's
presidential campaign, and - thanks to a New
York Times article about a yet-to-be-released
book - her family's financial interests are under
increased scrutiny.

The book in question is Clinton Cash: The Untold
Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and
Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich -
and it's fairly clear from the title exactly what
conclusions author Peter Schweizer draws.
He alleges that while Mrs Clinton was secretary
of state, her family's non-profit organisation, the
Clinton Foundation , was accepting donations
from foreign interests and her husband, former
President Bill Clinton, was bringing in six-figure
fees for speeches overseas in exchange for special
considerations and favours.
Questions about the propriety of the foundation's
donation policy aren't new. The International
Business Times, for instance, has published a
series of articles digging deep into the Clinton
family's relations with Colombian petroleum
company Pacific Rubiales and its founder,
Canadian-born billionaire Frank Giustra, who sits
on the Clinton Foundation board.
Word of this book has been bubbling in
conservative circles for a while - Kentucky
Senator Rand Paul has been alluding to the "big
news" ever since he launched his presidential bid
in early April.
But the New York Times article, which calls
Schweizer's work the "most anticipated and
feared book" of the presidential cycle so far, has
boosted interest in the topic.
So what can we make of all this? Here are five
questions to get us started.
What does Clinton Cash claim?
Schweizer's book isn't scheduled to be released
until 5 May, so the quotes being circulated have
been provided by Amy Chozick of the New York
Times, who has seen a preview copy.
According to the Times, Schweizer writes: "We
will see a pattern of financial transactions
involving the Clintons that occurred
contemporaneous with favourable US policy
decisions benefiting those providing the funds."
Former President Bill Clinton is paid as much as
$500,000 per speech
Some of the "hundreds of large transactions" that
the Clintons have made during Mrs Clinton's time
in public service, he writes, "have put millions in
their own pockets".
While Mrs Clinton was secretary of state,
Schweizer writes, her husband was being paid by
foreign interests as much as $500,000
(£335,000) to give speeches. In 2011 he gave 54
speeches for $13.3m "the majority of which were
made overseas".
Schweizer contends that Mrs Clinton backed a
free-trade agreement with Colombia that
benefitted a donor's South American "natural
resources investments" (presumably a reference
to Giustra), had conflicts of interest in the
recovery efforts after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti
and received "more than $1 million" from a
Canadian bank that was funding the proposed
Keystone XL pipeline through the US while the
State Department was considering whether to
approve the project.
The State Department review in question has not
yet been concluded, it should be noted, more than
two years after Mrs Clinton left office.
Clinton Cash is published by HarperCollins, a
mainstream US house - not a more partisan
imprint like Regnery, which has made a small
fortune from anti-Clinton books. Critics will be
quick to point out that HarperCollins is owned by
conservative media magnate Rupert Murdoch's
News Corporation, however.
Who is Peter Schweizer?
Schweizer is a former speechwriting consultant
for Republican President George W Bush, a fellow
at the conservative California-based think tank
the Hoover Institution, president of the
Government Accountability Institute and a senior
editor-at-large for Breitbart.com, a right-wing
news and opinion website.
He's written two other books, Extortion: How
Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes and
Line Their Own Pockets and Throw Them All Out:
How Politicians and Their Friends Get Rich Off
Insider Stock Tips, Land Deals and Cronyism That
Would Send the Rest of Us to Jail.
In Extortion, Schweizer accuses members of
Congress, Republican and Democratic, of running
a glorified protection racket, where they shake
down donors under the threat of adverse
legislation.
"Pay me money, and I will promise not to make
your life miserable," is how he describes it to the
National Journal. "Fail to pay, and bad things will
happen to you."
It was enough to stir the ire of Republican
Speaker of the House John Boehner, who said
Schweizer was making "bogus and salacious
claims to sell books".
Others have defended Schweizer's work.
"Schweizer is no hack," tweets Scott Lincicome of
the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. "He's
written several great books on DC corruption."
What are people saying about the book?
Not surprisingly, many on the right are heralding
the book as further evidence of Clinton
malfeasance - and a possible major blow to Mrs
Clinton's presidential ambitions.
"She's in big trouble," tweets Commentary's John
Podhoretz.
It is yet further evidence of Mrs Clinton's secrecy
and corruption, they contend - in what has
become an early line of attack on candidate
Clinton.
In an ironic twist many of the same
commentators who regularly bash the New York
Times are now citing its article as evidence
supporting the seriousness of the charges against
the former secretary of state.
Republicans are attacking Hillary Clinton's
"secrecy"
"Dems attacking the messenger, but even the NYT
admits his [Schweizer] reporting is solid and
documented," writes Guy Benson, political editor
of the conservative website Townhall.
Others on the right are less hopeful that the story
will have a lasting impact, given the enthusiasm
with which reporters covered Mrs Clinton's recent
van tour of Iowa.
"Remember who we are dealing with here," writes
Pocket Full of Liberty's Jay Caruso. "The
spectacle of a bunch of professional journalists
chasing after Hillary's Mystery Mobile like a
gaggle of screaming teenage girls hoping to get a
glimpse of a New Direction group member should
give anybody pause to think they're going to ask
any hard questions."
How will the Clinton campaign respond?
Now that Mrs Clinton's campaign is fully up and
running, expect a robust defence of the Clinton
Foundation, praising its global effort to address
childhood obesity, Aids and poverty.
"The Clinton Foundation is a philanthropic
organisation that funds programs to help people
throughout this great nation and all over the
world," says Adrienne Watson of Correct the
Record, a liberal group supporting Mrs Clinton, in
a press statement. She adds that if Republican
candidates "think attacking the foundation for its
work to stop the Aids epidemic in Africa is an
electoral strategy, then bring it on."
The campaign will also likely attempt to paint
Schweizer's book as just another right-wing
attack on a woman who has been targeted by
political hotheads and conspiracy theorists for
decades.
"Schweizer is a partisan right-wing activist whose
writings have been marked with falsehoods and
retractions, with numerous reporters excoriating
him for facts that 'do not check out', sources that
'do not exist' and a basic failure to practice
'Journalism 101'," writes David Brock of the
liberal group Media Matters for America.
Brian Fallon, a Clinton campaign spokesperson,
also offers an opening shot, as quoted by the
Times: "It will not be the first work of partisan-
fueled fiction about the Clintons' record, and we
know it will not be the last."
Will this have a lasting impact on Mrs Clinton's
campaign?
The trick with any "appearance of impropriety"
allegation is that, without concrete proof of
corruption, the seriousness of the charge is in the
eye of the beholder.
Will the book be able to make a connection
between donations and official actions? That's a
difficult task, and the Times article gives no
indication that the book provides direct evidence.
This could, then, end up being treated like many
of the other stories unfavourable to Mrs Clinton -
trumpeted by her critics and dismissed by
supporters.
According to Chozick, however, the Times - as
well as the Washington Post and Fox News -
have entered into "exclusive agreements" with
Schweizer "to pursue the story lines found in the
book". If these news outlets can unearth details of
a quid pro quo, Mrs Clinton's political outlook
could darken quickly.
Hillary Clinton's campaign is now in full swing
Then again, it could lead some Clinton supporters
to turn on the Post and the Times. In fact, it
already has.
"The partnership between HarperCollins, Fox
News and the nation's two leading newspapers
amounts to an open declaration of war in a
presidential election, and the consummation of an
alliance with a totally disreputable 'news'
conglomerate," writes the National Memo's Joe
Conason. "This is the journalistic equivalent of
the Hitler-Stalin pact."
At the very least Republican candidates for
president will prominently feature Clinton
Foundation references in their campaign stump
speeches.
Mr Paul has added a form to his website asking
visitors to provide "additional information" on
foreign contributions to the foundation.
The risk for Republicans who want this story to
gain traction is that the more this gets turned
into another partisan football, the more it will
fade into the growing din of campaign politics and
hot air - whether it deserves to or not.