On her Friday MSNBC show, host Andrea Mitchell dismissed the upcoming Clinton Cash book as having "a lot of holes" in its corruption allegations against Bill and Hillary Clinton: "There is the question of, how do you connect the policy that she was pursuing as a Secretary of State with the allegation that money was being contributed to the charity or speeches were being booked for Bill Clinton that wouldn't have otherwise been booked?"
She argued: "You know, the timing may be fortuitous or suspicious or coincidental, but you can't make that connection in a lot of cases."
The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza agreed with Mitchell and observed that only some kind of electronic record of such dealings could make the case: "...it's hard to prove, Andrea. It's just very difficult, because as you say, a donation coming in and the State Department saying something or Bill Clinton giving a speech or whatever it may be, unless you can prove in an e-mail, in a text, in a phone call that it was directly linked one to the other, it's just tough."
Amazingly, neither Cillizza nor Mitchell made any connection to the scandal involving the former secretary of state deleting tens of thousands of e-mails from her private server.
That same lack of awareness was demonstrated by Mitchell's fellow MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell, who on Thursday's Morning Joe claimed a "chain of e-mail in the State Department" would be able to prove the Clintons' innocence.
Here is a transcript of Mitchell's April 24 exchange with Cillizza:
12:13 PM ET
HILLARY CLINTON: You, too can be a champion for change. It doesn't matter whether you're a student or an artist, a journalist, an ambassador, maybe even a future president. We all have our stories.
[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE]
ANDREA MITCHELL: Hillary Clinton wrapping up a week that started in New Hampshire and ended at Tina Brown's Women in the World. But ended also fending off attacks from the Benghazi Select Committee and that new book, Clinton Cash.
Joining me now to sort it all out for our Daily Fix, Chris Cillizza, MSNBC contributor, founder of Washington Post's Fix blog, and New York Times political reporter Jeremy Peters, right here.
Well, Chris Cillizza, it's been the week that was and Hillary Clinton had a tough time with the Cash book. But truth be told, having gone through it last night once we got the book yesterday, there are a lot of holes. There is the question of, how do you connect the policy that she was pursuing as a secretary of state with the allegation that money was being contributed to the charity or speeches were being booked for Bill Clinton that wouldn't have otherwise been booked? You know, the timing may be fortuitous or suspicious or coincidental, but you can't make that connection in a lot of cases.
CHRIS CILLIZZA: Proving a political prid – quid pro quo – it's hard to say, it's hard to prove, Andrea. It's just very difficult, because as you say, a donation coming in and the State Department saying something or Bill Clinton giving a speech or whatever it may be, unless you can prove in an e-mail, in a text, in a phone call that it was directly linked one to the other, it's just tough. My guess with the book is if you like Hillary Clinton, you're going to largely dismiss it. If you don't like Hillary Clinton, you're going to see lots of things in there that deserve more reporting. Like most things with Hillary Clinton, sort of, people divide along their preconceived opinions about her.
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