Trump plans to target Clinton over WhitewaterIn an email obtained by POLITICO, the Trump campaign asks the RNC to research the scandal.
By KENNETH P. VOGEL and MARC CAPUTO 05/25/16 01:26 PM EDT
Donald Trump, who in recent days has accused Bill Clinton of rape and suggested he and Hillary Clinton may have had a role in the death of one of their close friends, plans to focus next on the Whitewater real estate scandal, POLITICO has learned.
Trump campaign adviser Michael Caputo on Wednesday morning emailed a researcher at the Republican National Committee asking him to “work up information on HRC/Whitewater as soon as possible. This is for immediate use and for the afternoon talking points process.”
The email was obtained by POLITICO when Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks, who Caputo copied on his request to the RNC, accidentally responded instead to Marc Caputo, a POLITICO reporter who is not related to the Republican consultant.RNC chief strategist Sean Spicer issued a statement praising his committee’s research team as “the best in the business,” but neither he nor Hicks responded to questions about how or when the Trump campaign intended to invoke Whitewater, or whether they thought that spotlighting the matter might open Trump to more scrutiny of his own mixed record in real estate.
Whitewater refers to a scandal involving the Clintons’ real estate investment during the late 1970s through a company they formed called the Whitewater Development Corporation.
After Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992, the Justice Department and the U.S. Congress investigated various aspects of the Whitewater deal, including allegations that Clinton, as governor of Arkansas in the mid-1980s, used his influence to arrange a $300,000 loan to the Clintons’ partner in the deal.
Some Clinton associates were convicted for their roles in the matter. But the former first couple, who lost tens of thousands of dollars on the deal, was never prosecuted, despite the Justice Department having prepared several draft indictments of Hillary Clinton, which are the subject of an ongoing lawsuit seeking to compel their release.
Whitewater became a fulcrum in a constellation of interconnected scandals that continued to plague the couple through Bill Clinton’s entire presidency, and that Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, is now spotlighting in an effort to damage Hillary Clinton, his likely general election rival.
In fact, in a recent interview, Trump signaled his interest in both Whitewater and a related conspiracy theory about the death of Clinton White House counsel Vince Foster, who was involved in responding to Whitewater inquiries and filing overdue tax returns for the Whitewater Development Corporation. His death was ruled a suicide, but conservative conspiracy theorists hypothesized that he was killed as part of a Whitewater cover up.
Trump said: “It’s the one thing with her, whether it’s Whitewater or whether it’s Vince or whether it’s Benghazi. It’s always a mess with Hillary.”
Spicer in his statement called the Trump campaign’s Whitewater research request “just another example of Republican campaigns up and down the ballot looking to us for the best information. Whether it’s the Trump campaign or top Senate, House or down ballot candidates we will consistently provide them with the resources they need to win.”
Hicks, in her errant email, attempted to warn Michael Caputo, not to directly contact the RNC researcher, Michael Abboud, with research requests. But Hicks’ email suggested the researcher may soon be joining the campaign team, which has mostly lacked a robust in-house research operation.
“He is still an employee of the RNC and we need to be sensitive to that until he comes over to our team full time,” Hicks wrote in the email accidentally sent to Marc Caputo.
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