Washington, DC -- (ReleaseWire) -- 10/21/2016 --BENNETT: Ed Klein is the author of the bestselling book Guilty as Sin: Uncovering New Evidence of Corruption and How Hillary Clinton and the Democrats Derailed the FBI Investigation which is currently #6 on The New York Times bestseller list. Ed is also the former foreign editor of the Newsweek and editor-in-chief of The New York Times magazine as well as a contributing editor to Vanity Fair. Klein's book is about how Hillary and her career has skipped out on justice so many times. Ed, welcome to Financial Myth Busting.
ED KLEIN: Thank you, Dawn, Great to be with you and thank you for having me.
BENNETT: You have a new book out that's tearing up the bestsellers list about Hillary Clinton's e-mail scandal. It's called Guilty as Sin, but according to the director of the FBI, James Comey, Clinton's actions were merely careless, not criminal. Why do you think Comey seemed to go out of his way to effectively exonerate Clinton? Is it because of his prior relationship with the Clintons?
KLEIN: No, I don't think so. I think it was his prior relationship with himself, to be a little jocular for a moment here on a very serious subject. I think James Comey thinks very highly of himself, and with some reason. After all, he didn't become Director of the FBI, a major, position, of course, in our government, by falling off the back of a turnip truck. His ambition, his desire to rise in the ranks of the criminal justice system: all that says that he's a guy who knows how to be a political player. And when it came to the question of whether he was going to recommend an indictment or not, he looked around, saw that he had the White House against him, the Justice Department against him, the prosecutors against him, the intelligence community wasn't working with him, the Democratic leadership in Congress was opposed to him indicting Hillary and, of course, then you also had the mainstream liberal media who wanted Hillary to skate and Comey decided if he did what he knew was right, which was to recommend an indictment because she had indeed violated at least one statute, the espionage statute, by carelessly handling top secret information, the entire avalanche of the secular establishment would come crashing down on his reputation and the FBI so he folded like a cheap suit and tried to duck responsibility and in doing so I think he hurt himself more than he expected.
BENNETT: So he plays the game. It was reported also this week that FBI agents who were assigned to the Hillary investigation were actually furious with James Comey and they described him as 'a dirty cop' who pursues paranoia and delusion and vindictive measures to prevent negative information leaking out to the public. But if that's the case why haven't we seen a bigger revolt internal to the FBI? Why haven't there been any resignations among agents?
KLEIN: You know, in my book 'Guilty as Sin' I do a very deep dive into the FBI and how it works and how James Comey works. One of the things that your listeners would be very interested to know is that after the investigation was over James Comey required, ordered, all the agents who had anything to do with the investigations to sign a non-disclosure agreement and in that agreement it says that if you disclose anything relating to this investigation you are liable to criminal investigation. Criminal investigation! You go to jail! You can lose your pension, your job – everything! So, what's happened is some of these agents have been talking privately to some of their friends who have now retired from the FBI but none of them, as far as I know, have actually contacted the media because a lot of them are being polygraphed as well. In random polygraphs, if you have spoken to somebody at The New York Times and you take a polygraph test and they find out that you're lying about that you can go to jail. That's why there's been no outward revolt yet. However, I believe that there will be but, unfortunately, it'll probably be well after this election.
BENNETT: Sure. Even last night, there was a story that came out that talked about how a senior State Department official repeatedly had pressed the FBI to change the classification of e-mails stored on Hillary Clinton's private server. Did you hear about this?
KLEIN: No, I didn't, actually.
BENNETT: Yeah, the State Department tried offering the FBI quid pro quo. Well, if you haven't heard about it, something that came out last night about that and, of course, the FBI denied it but they said they're going to go ahead and research it.
KLEIN: I'm sorry to interrupt, but if you want to know how the FBI really botched this investigation of Hillary Clinton's e-mails, it's all laid out in my book Guilty as Sin and I think people need to know this because this has a lot to do with the outcome of the coming election on November 8. I mean, this is not just some typical corruption in Washington. We're talking about jeopardizing our security, putting American lives at stake, allowing our enemies to read about our most cherished top secrets and Hillary Clinton did this knowingly, intentionally, she had been warned about it and did it anyway and I have tons of material about that in this new book.
BENNETT: Your book does make some shocking revelations about the Congressional investigation into Hillary's server which you say exposed an act of corruption that bordered on treason. What's one of the most damning scandals that was uncovered?
KLEIN: By Congress or by me?
BENNETT: Either way.
KLEIN: I'm going to veer off the e-mail thing for a moment and say what I think is one of the biggest scandals. You know, all presidential libraries are funded by the National Archives. That means taxpayer money goes to running presidential libraries – that's Reagan Library, Nixon Library and William Jefferson Clinton Library. In Little Rock—I have a whole chapter in my book about this—in Little Rock, the William J. Clinton Library has a penthouse on the fifth floor where Bill Clinton hold private parties. I've interviewed two of the interns who work in the library. These are women in their 20s who've been invited upstairs to the penthouse by Bill Clinton and have given him foot massages. Now, this is interesting not because I want to broadcast tabloid stuff, but given the fact that everybody and his uncle is down on Donald Trump for things he did 30 years ago, Bill Clinton today, maybe even as we speak is up to his usual shenanigans in the penthouse of his own presidential library. He takes out a garden hose and hoses down women in wet t-shirt contests. And nobody's writing about this. I've written about it in my book, but none of the mainstream media has picked up about it.
BENNETT: Well, have they picked up on it and decided not to write about it? I think another thing that's coming out of the e-mails is that the media seems to be very supportive of the Clintons, both Hillary and Bill, and therefore they're not reporting anything versus, of course, Trump. They're going to take him down. It's just amazing to me how the media is just trying to embarrass Trump but not Hillary at all or even Bill.
KLEIN: You may know, if you read in my biography, that I used to work at The New York Times. I was the editor-in-chief for ten years in The New York Times magazine. That was a long time ago, maybe 30 years almost. When I was there, the guy who actually ran the newspaper and to whom I reported was a guy named A.M. Rosenthal, and Abe Rosenthal had a saying which was as follows: 'If you cover the circus, you can't sleep with the elephants.' Our media today is sleeping with the elephants. In this case the donkeys, actually, because the entire mainstream media is in the tank for Hillary. And I'm not just saying this as a Trump supporter; I'm saying this as a journalist of many, many decades standing who's sick at heart seeing what's happened to our media and how unfair the coverage has been. Donald has done a lot of damage to himself, there's no question about that, but the media has jumped on his throat and let Hillary get a pass.
BENNETT: They do seem to have a very cozy relationship with Hillary. And these e-mails, this e-mail dump—there was even a transcript in there for an interview she did with MSNBC's Chris Hayes before they even conducted the so-called interview, so they're giving her the edge every step of the way and so is the FBI and so is the State Department. There are a lot of people trying to help her get in, so I think they're just disregarding anything like wet t-shirt contest and foot rubs.
KLEIN: Yeah. Where is the outrage? Why aren't people up in arms about the media? They should be. And again, in Guilty as Sin I am in outrage and I really lay this out, why the media is no longer to be trusted.
BENNETT: For someone coming from the media, that's a pretty strong statement.
KLEIN: Well, quite frankly, I think it's an understatement because I think it's a disgrace what's happened to our media. And only talk-shows like yours and Fox News channel – that's about only place you can really get a fair and balanced view of what's going on in this country.
BENNETT: There's something else I want to bring out that's in your book for those who don't follow politics as closely as you did. What you've put in your book is that there is a big rivalry between the Obama family and the Clintons and you report that Obama actually wanted Comey from the FBI to indict Hillary. What happened exactly and why do they hate each other so much?
KLEIN: Well, there are two what I call 'mafia families' in the Democratic Party – the Clintons and the Obamas. They don't see eye to eye on a lot of things, including ideology but more importantly power, who is going to control the Democratic Party and the millions, really tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in patronage jobs, campaign workers – all that stuff that goes into controlling the party. Obamas and Clintons have been wrestling over this for years and they really, really despise each other. Now, for a while President Obama was looking for somebody, almost anybody, who would challenge Hillary for the nomination of the party. This was when she first announced she was running. He went to Joe Biden, he went to Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and some others and tried to persuade them and offered his support against Hillary. At that time, he was happy as a clam that the FBI was going after Hillary because he didn't want to see her in the White House because the Obamas felt if the Clintons got in the White House, they would be marginalized, they'd be pushed aside, they would not have any power anymore, they'd be yesterday's news, nobody would listen to them. But he couldn't find anybody to challenge Hillary except Bernie Sanders who's kind of—I think it's too strong to say he was a joke, but he certainly was never going to get the nomination. Never get elected, that's for sure. So he met with Valerie Jarrett, Obama did, who is his closest adviser, friend and power behind the throne there in the White House and she said in one of the chapters in my book: 'Getting him to endorse Hillary Clinton wax like shoving a toad down his throat.' But he did. He realized he had no choice. So at that point he did a 180 degree flip-flop from wanting her to be indicted, so that she wouldn't get the nomination, to absolutely totally against her being indicted and he threw all his weight, the weight of the administration, the presidency, the White House, the Justice Department, the intelligence agencies, the Democratic leadership against James Comey, the FBI director. And it was that flip-flop that doomed the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton.
BENNETT: The Wall Street Journal actually confirms a version of that. They just reported that the Obama administration not only knew about Hillary's private e-mail server but they actually conspired along with the State Department to cover it up.
KLEIN: I think that's not only true, but I've actually proven that in my interviews in Guilty as Sin, that the Obama people knew from practically day one when she was Secretary of State what she was doing with her private server.
BENNETT: Isn't the larger issue here with Hillary and in general the Clintons really a question of trust?
KLEIN: Oh, yeah, very much so. I mean, after all, the person we elect to the Oval Office—we're investing our trust in that person that he or she will number one, protect the safety of our country. And that is a complicated issue, just that. We're talking about safety from terrorism, we're talking about safety from immigration, drugs, and we're also in a larger sense talking about keeping us safe from economic decline and from the terrible hollowing out of our middle class. So when you look at these two candidates – Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump – I think, and I say this in a chapter of my book called 'The Choice', you're talking about on the one hand Hillary Clinton who has said she will continue the policies of the Obama administration on steroids. She's going to do more immigration, she's going to continue this ineffectual economic policy. On the other hand, you have Donald Trump who is saying 'Look, I'm going to go in there and I'm going to shake things up. I'm going to lower taxes. I'm going to stop the immigration that's pouring across our borders and the drugs. And I'm going to help the inner cities rebuild.' I mean, there's a stark choice between these two and that all goes to the question of trust. Who do you trust will bring America back to, as Donald says, to the greatness that it once had?
BENNETT: It's interesting to me she's saying one thing to the public but in her e-mails it's another story. Like, for example, she says to the public that she is for same sex marriage but in her e-mails she says she is not for that. Or, for example, Hillary's senior advisers were all mocking the owners of News Corp for being practicing Catholics which they thought was just political posturing. It's so fascinating! I don't know what to trust. Do we trust the e-mails or do we trust the Hillary in front of the television?
KLEIN: Who's the real Hillary exactly? You can't tell. Even the private Hillary may not be the real Hillary because there is no real Hillary. There's no core to this person. She'll do whatever it takes to get where she wants and that means she really doesn't have a basic set of principles by which she lives. I've written about that now for 13 or 14 years because I've written several books about Hillary Clinton including this latest one. And people say, 'Do you hate Hillary Clinton?' No, I don't hate her, but I do very much fear the return of the Clintons to the White House because if Hillary is elected we're going to get Bill and Hillary right back there in the White House and every time they've been in power we have been embroiled in scandal and cover-ups and that's exactly what will happen again if Hillary becomes president.
BENNETT: But Americans have such short memories. Let me ask you something. Do you believe that Google is censoring search results to protect Hillary?
KLEIN: The answer is yes, but I don't know how high that goes. In other words, does it go all the way up to the CEO of Google? Is he or she ordering that or are there just tons and tons of people in the media? And that's not just newspapers and broadcasts but it's anybody in the information area who are so aligned with Hillary that they will make sure that the message that Google gets out is all pro-Hillary.
BENNETT: That's so fascinating. Where can our listeners get your book?
KLEIN: Guilty as Sin, which is climbing up the list, as you said, The New York Times bestseller list, can be easily gotten at amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com. I think it's going for like $12 or $14 which is like going to the movies and having some popcorn. It's very inexpensive and it's a great, easy read. It's also available at my website, edwardklein.com, and at bookstores everywhere.
BENNETT: And you also had a book in 2015 called Unlikeable: The Problem with Hillary; another called Blood Feud: The Clintons vs. The Obamas which is fascinating; and finally The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House, which was also excellent. I wish you the best of luck on all those.
KLEIN: Really very kind of you to say that, Dawn. I appreciate it.
BENNETT: That was Ed Klein and, again, you want to get his book Guilty as Sin: Uncovering New Evidence of Corruption and How Hillary Clinton and the Democrats Derailed the FBI Investigation.
For over a quarter century, Dawn Bennett has been successfully guiding clients through the complexities of wealth management. Her unique vision and insight into market trends makes Bennett a much sought after expert resource with regular appearances on Fox News Channel, CNBC, Bloomberg TV, and MSNBC as well as being featured in Business Week, Fortune, The NY Times, The NY Sun, Washington Business Journal in addition to her highly regarded weekly talk radio program - Financial Mythbusting. Through prudent and thoughtful advice, Dawn Bennett has strived to consistently provide the highest quality of guidance.
About Dawn Bennett
Dawn Bennett is CEO and Founder of Bennett Group Financial Services. She hosts a national radio program called Financial Myth Busting http://www.financialmythbusting.com.
She discusses educational topics and events in the financial news, along with her thoughts on the economy, financial markets, investments, and more with her live guests, who have included rock legend Ted Nugent, as well as Steve Forbes and Grover Norquist. Listeners can call 855-884-DAWN a as well as take podcasts on the road and forums for interaction.
She can be reached on Twitter @DawnBennettFMB or on Facebook Financial Myth Busting with Dawn Bennett.