Andrea Mitchell: Peter Schweizer’s Clinton Cash ‘Opposition Research Playbook for Any News Organization,’ ‘Overshadowing’ Hillary Rollout

On Tuesday, NBC News reporter Andrea Mitchell admitted that Government Accountability Institute President and Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large Peter Schweizer’s blockbuster book, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich, is an “opposition research playbook for any news organization.”

She said that the Clinton campaign is taking the book extremely seriously because Schweizer’s findings and revelations are “overshadowing” Hillary Clinton’s campaign rollout.

Earlier in the day, Mitchell, the veteran reporter who has been peppering Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail with questions as Clinton tries to evade the press, told MSNBC host Jose Diaz-Balart that the Clinton campaign is taking Schweizer’s Clinton Cash “so seriously that they are trying to go after it rather than brushing it off or trying to dismiss… Schweizer as a Republican antagonist.” She said Schweizer’s Clinton Cash is “overshadowing” the Clinton campaign and will continue to do so “by the continuing questions trailing her.”

Veteran Nevada political journalist Jon Ralston told Mitchell that the Clintons have “a reality problem” and not just a “perception problem” in light of the book’s numerous revelations that mainstream media organizations have already independently confirmed.

In his wide-ranging interview with Schweizer for his podcast, Politico’s Glenn Thrush said Schweizer was presenting mainstream media organizations with “unbaked bread” that then “rises through the heat” after media organizations do more reporting based on Schweizer’s initial research and findings.

Schweizer noted that he had tried to contact people like Frank Giustra, the Canadian mining executive who pledged millions to the Clinton Foundation after the former president helped him secure uranium contracts in Kazakhstan, and others associated with the Clintons on numerous occasions but they never responded.

“It was not for a lack of trying,” Schweizer said, noting that “there are limitations as to what authors can do” compared to mainstream media organizations like ABC News, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.

Schweizer said that his Government Accountability Institute has “a lot of people who can amass a lot of information we can share with reporters, and reporters can actually do the reporting that they are capable of doing.”