FRANK KNAPP (HOST): David, let me ask you this. Going back to the 90s when you were writing as an investigative reporter for The American Spectator, which of course was a very conservative vehicle for getting out a lot of the rumors. Did you all ever at the time think about gee, how come we're so successful in promulgating these rumors about the Clintons and are we just sort of throwing this out there?

[...]

KNAPP: You all, as you said, were kind of a ragtag type of outfit. Did you even speculate at the time of why you were being so successful at hammering Bill Clinton at that time?

DAVID BROCK: Well, you know, we had some success in marketing this material into the mainstream media at the time, although it was harder than it is today it seems like. We had to jump through a lot more hoops. Today you've got the Benghazi committee on Capitol Hill directly and successfully manipulating publications like The New York Times. So that environment has changed and has gotten much more challenging and more toxic than it was in the 1990s.

KNAPP: But do you feel today that there is some type of inclination on mainstreet media to be more interested in rumors about progressive politicians than conservative politicians?

BROCK: Well, yes I think there's definitely a double-standard. And, you know, I write about in the book about something that has been called the “Clinton rule.” Which is when the Clintons do something that's totally normal and typical and usual for any other politician, the press treats it as if it's something wrong and corrupt and sleazy. And that is definitely a double-standard. And this goes back to the time the Clintons first came on the national scene, when Whitewater was planted in The New York Times by Clinton's political enemies in Arkansas. And that led to Travelgate and Filegate and the reality is Ken Starr spent over $70 million to try and prove any of that and they never found any wrongdoing. And we're in a very similar pattern today. Benghazi has been investigated by 10 congressional committees and independent investigations, including by the Republican led House Intelligence Committee. They found no wrongdoing by any responsible official, by President Obama, by Hillary Clinton. And now it's morphed into emails. And we've been six months on emails. And they haven't found the silver bullet there either. And so Secretary Clinton is going to go in next week hopefully to testify. She's been trying to do that for months now. And I think once she does that, we can really begin to turn a page on all of this because the Republicans will be on the defensive that day. They're going to have to try to justify the fact that they've squandered almost $5 million in taxpayer money now and they're going to have to justify their existence. And she'll have the wind at her back and so I'm looking forward to that testimony.

[...]

KNAPP: The New York Times has done their own investigation into this whole situation where the Benghazi committee has now morphed into simply an email, attack Hillary through her emails. And unfortunately, our Congressman Trey Gowdy, who heads up this Benghazi committee.

BROCK: Right.

KNAPP: Back in February apparently pledged that they were going to hold nine public hearings, they were going to call all of these witnesses from all of these other different places, and apparently none of that has happened.

BROCK: That's right. They're in a way, they've been so focused on putting out what they consider to be damaging leaks in the press, that they're not even doing the job they said they would do. And these leaks, particularly to The New York Times, have ended up being completely false and wrong and blowing up in their face. We've had allegations of potential criminal misconduct against Hillary Clinton leaked by this committee into The Times in the past few months. And each and every time the story unravels. It had to be retracted or otherwise revised. And so, in that sense, it's been absolute abuse of congressional power and they're behind their own schedule on the substance of what they say they're trying to do.

Previously:

NY Times Public Editor Acknowledges The Paper's Heightened Scrutiny Of Hillary Clinton

Can The New York Times Salvage Its Clinton Coverage?

NY Times Issues Second Major Correction To Botched Report On Clinton's Emails