The American presidential contest is heating up, but the new book about
Democratic co-frontrunner Hillary Clinton may have some wide consequences. It
alleges that the Clinton family has been involved in abuse, rape and fraud, not
having any qualms with using the privileged position and money to shut the
mouths of victims. What's the basis of these claims? Can it change the flow of
the election campaign? We speak to the author of the book, a former advisor to
Nixon and Reagan. Roger Stone is on Sophie&Co today.
Sophie
Shevardnadze: Roger
Stone, political strategist, former advisor to presidents Nixon, Reagan, to
candidate Donald Trump.. Now, you've just pen a book, called "Clinton's
war on women", where you alleged that a lot of, frankly, sensational
things about the personal lives of Bill and HIllary Clinton. For instance, you
claim that Clintons systematically abused women, sexually and physically. Do
you mean to say they rape and beat them? I mean, is that what you're saying?
Roger Stone: Well, Hillary Clinton's running for president of the
U.S., claiming to be an advocate for women and that's true - unless you're one
of those women unlucky enough to have been sexually assaulted by her husband.
Eileen Wellstone, Juanita Broaddrick, Carolyn Moffet, Liz Ward, Becky Brown,
Helen Dowdy, Polly Jones, Cathy Ferguson, Christy Zercher, Kathy Willey - I
could go on, because they are in the hundreds. These women have been sexually
assaulted by Bill and then it is Hillary Clinton, as I establish in my book,
who hires the heavy-handed private detectives to then threaten those women, to
intimidate them into silence, so they don't get in the way of the Clinton's
rise to power and wealth.
SS: Okay, so, mr. Stone, I guess the
important question here is where do you get this information from?
RS: From the women themselves. They've all been
interviewed, extensively. Unfortunately here, in the mainstream media in the
U.S., through most of the 90s you had a very substantial media blackout, but
Juanita Broaddrick, for example, spoke about her horrific rape at the hands of
Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton not only raped her but he bit her upper lip, almost
bit it through as a bid to be silenced. She said this on NBC in an interview
with Lisa Myers. She said it with Sean Hannity on Fox News network.
Unfortunately, many in the mainstream media, in the thrall of the Clintons,
didn't cover it. But, it happened, and no one has been able to disprove it. One
of the great canards that comes from the Clinton's supporters is that they say:
"Oh, that's all been discredited and has been disproved" - actually,
none of it has been discredited, none of it has been disproved. We also reveal
in the book that Hillary has been physically abusive of her husband.
SS: Hold on, hold on, before we get to
that point, I want to ask you, because, you know, these are very serious
allegations, okay? So, why are we only hearing about them now, and, honestly,
where is the guarantee that, you know, these women telling these stories, they
are true? How can you trust them?
RS: It's kinda like Bill Cosby: if there were one or two
women, you might guess. I interviewed 27 women who tell an identical story.
These women have not even spoke to each other in many cases. Here, in the U.S.,
when you publish a book like this, you can be sued. My lawyers, for the
publisher, have gone through every word, my book is carefully documented with
footnotes and sources. I stand behind my book and let the book speak for
itself. Last week, Hillary Clinton put out a video designed for college rape
victims and she said, and I quote: "You deserve to be believed". Why
are those women different from these women who have been sexually assaulted by
her husband? Why are we just hearing about it now? Because the mainstream media
in this country has blocked this information. It's a very sad thing, but it's
true. These women are available, they talk to other reporters, all these things
have been reported elsewhere, but they don't get picked up by CBS.
SS: How come they didn't block Monica
Lewinsky but they block all these other women from telling their story?
RS: Because Monica Lewinsky's relationship with Bill
Clinton was a consensual relationship. My book is not about consensual sex. I
am libertine, I understand consensual sex between adults...
SS: No, no, hold on, that's not the point
of my question. The point of my question is, if a woman wants to talk about
having sex with a President, whether it's rape or consensual, media definitely
grabs that story and then you have a President who is almost impeached,
so why wouldn't they talk about these other 27 women that you allege were
abused by Bill Clinton?
RS: In many cases it took a lawsuit. Bill Clinton denied,
for example, that he ever met Paula Jones. Then, in the House impeachment
inquiry, when he was under oath, he reluctantly admitted that he had assaulted
her and her paid her $850,000 in a legal settlement. So, these women have
spoken out in many cases. Let me say this: when you have your children
threatened, your pets killed, you home ransacked and broken into, your car
windows shattered, when you have late-night phone calls saying "We know
where your children go to school".... many of these women were very
reticent to talk because they are poor women. They are not women who can afford
lawyers. They are not women who can afford to fight back. By the way, Michael
Isikoff from NBC, he has reported this, Roger Morris, Pulitzer prize-winning
author of Washington Post, he has reported this. So, it's not just Roger Stone
who has made these allegations.
SS: Now, you say, Hillary
"psychologically raped" her or Bill's victims. Why do you refer to it
like that? Aren't you just being inflammatory?
RS: No, not at all. Well, you're a woman, how would you
feel if your pet was killed, if you cat was killed and left at the front door?
If a man called your home late at night and said: "We know where your kids
go to school"? If your home was broken into? In my book, I establish the
actual names and, in many cases, the reports by other journalists that Jack
Palladino, private detective, Anthony Pellicano, private detective, now in
prison for illegal wiretapping, Ivan Duda, private detective - these men all
said the same thing, they were retained by Hillary Clinton to keep tabs on and
conduct a terror campaign to silence Bill's sexual assault victims. No, I'm not
being inflammatory, I deal in facts, not rumors, not conspiracy, facts. By the
way, I'm open to lawsuits, here in the U.S., the Clinton's won't sue me,
because they know that I can then depose them, under oath, about anything in
this book.
SS: Do you think they'll sue you or
they're too busy running the campaign?
RS: No, they're too busy being afraid that this is the
issue that can bring them down. Now, I should also say, my book also includes
the two billion dollar financial frauds at the Clinton Foundation, includes
Bill Clinton's involvement with trafficking cocaine during the time when he was
the governor, his association with Dan Lasater and others. This book is a
complete and total expose of Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton.
SS: So you also say that... you allege
that Hillary physically abused her husband, Bill. I mean, this sounds like a
lot of passion. Here, in Russia, by the way, we have this tongue-in-cheek
proverb, "to beat is to love". I don't like domestic violence, but
that's how the proverb goes. So, perhaps, she just loves him too much?
RS: I don't believe the Secret Service agents who have
told that to multiple reporters in the U.S. are lying, I don't think the former
campaign associates of Bill Clinton who have spoken too, it was published in
the last weeks in the New York Post... We know, Dee Dee Myers, President's
Press-Secretary, ultimately admitted it, when she said that after Barbra
Streisand's stayed overnight in the White House, at the time when Hillary was
out of town, she said that the scratch on the President's face was caused by a
"shaving accident". She later admitted that that was a lie. No, I
think I put forward the evidence, hard evidence, documented evidence, that
Hillary Clinton has beaten, kicked, punched, scratched and thrown hard objects
at her husband. At the same time, she says in her gun control proposal:
"Those involved in domestic abuse should not have a gun", it's
hypocrisy, that's what this is about.
SS: But is their marriage really much
fairer than many other people's intense relationships, seriously?
RS: Their marriage is dysfunctional. It is a marriage of
convenience, and the instance of a lust for power. Even if I'm wrong, even if
Bill's sexual conquests are all consensual, how many times Hillary has to be
humiliated by her husband before she does something about it?
SS: Now, your co-author is known for his
obsession with the Clinton family, which, sometimes, to be quite honest, takes
sexual, really disturbing forms, which are not suitable, appropriate for us to
broadcast on TV. Doesn't that take away from the credibility of your book?
Especially if you're relying on the research of this pretty extreme person?
RS: I actually find your questions disturbing, because
you'd like to give a pass to the Clintons. You know what? Robert Moreau is a
supreme researcher, and there's no question: what he has learned about the
Clinton's abuse of people, men, women and children, has made him very, very
angry. He should be angry. Anybody who reads this book will be angry, because
it is the unvarnished, ugly truth about the privileged elite in this country.
There are certain people, like the Clintons, like the Bushes, for whom the laws
do not matter, they can traffic drugs, they can assault and abuse other people
- again, I ask people: read the book, make your own judgement. Don't let the
media decide for you, don't let the twisted freaks in Media Matters for America
who are being paid to peddle this information, don't let them decide for you.
Read the book, make your own decisions.
SS: Now, you recently quit your post as
an aide to Donald Trump, arguably the biggest Presidential rival to Hillary
Clinton at the moment. Aren't you still helping his cause with this book, or do
you just really hate the Clintons that much?
RS: Well, I don't "hate" anybody, but I do think
that our leaders should be improved. Look, I am not still working for Donald
Trump, but I am still supporting him. He has been a friend of mine for 40
years, he attended my wedding, I attended to of his, I went to the funerals of
both of his parents, I helped his sister become a very respected federal judge.
Donald Trump is the greatest entrepreneur and businessman in the U.S.. Frankly,
I think it's time for the U.S. to have a leader, to have a President kinda like
comrade Putin.
SS: We're gonna get to Donald Trump,
we're going to get to his campaign, but I am asking, precisely, about this
book: don't you think that people will see this as predictable muckraking from
the Republican camp?
RS: No, because I have written book, actually, about Jeb
Bush and the Bush crime family. I am not even a Republican! I am a member of
the Libertarian party. The Republican and the Democratic party in this country
have become one party. It's the Endless War party. It's the party of the
erosion of our civil liberties. It's the Big Debt and Big Borrowing party. It's
the party of high taxes, it's the party of Wall St.. Both parties are infected
with Wall St. money. This is why I am for Trump! He doesn't need Wall St.
money, he doesn't need special interest money. The book stands on its own. I've
began writing this book before I knew Donald Trump was going to run for
President.
SS: Now, you blame Hillary Clinton for
having a temper, for behaving abusively. Yet, you support Donald Trump who has
offended just about everyone along the way, and has been especially derogatory
to women. I mean, he seriously speaks about women like, about domestic
appliances, pretty much. Don't you see a contradiction here? Aren't you being a
little two-faced?
RS: Why would you acquaint words with physicality? They are
not the same. You know, free speech is a big item here in the U.S., we have
something called The First Amendment. If Trump has offended so many people, why
is he doing so well in the polls? No, my problem with Hillary Clinton is her
physical abuse of people, and that is the case I make in the book. I don't
think you can acquaint one with the other.
SS: You call yourself the "Ultimate
Trump loyalist", but you gave up your role as his top advisor. You said
it's because of controversy and provocative media fights but you're no stranger
to that. Why did you give up your chance to influence a campaign, help it stay
"on tracks" as you say?
RS: I think, I'm influencing the campaign more from the
outside, that I was from the inside. Politics is about ideas, big, sweeping,
important ideas. Yes, I think picking on reporters, attacking reporters is
counter-productive. I would have to tell you, no my place in my career,
generally speaking, have I attacked honest reporters. Most of the time, I don't
even bother with an exchange. Reporters are, generally speaking, doing their
job, but I was not happy, at that time, that Trump campaign was not laying out
his vision. Since that time he has put forward a very comprehensive economic
and jobs plan that I think would lift our economy and create millions of jobs
and make this country more competitive in the world marketplace. That's the
Donald Trump that I respect. He's an entrepreneur, he's a businessman, he's got
the financial independence to be president. Just because I have left his employ
does not mean that I'm having no impact on the election, and, frankly, I have
been on television, on radio, I have written far more about the Presidential
election than I have about Hillary Clinton and this book.
SS: Now, the Clintons aren't the only
heavyweight political clan that you're not big fan of. As you've mentioned,
there's a book on Jeb Bush in the works, right?
RS: Yes, that's correct.
SS: Do you have a general dislike of
powerful families, or it's just the Clintons and the Bushes?
RS: I have a general dislike of dynasties and families for
whom the rule of law means nothing. Yes, when an American politician,
regardless of the party, can break the law, can traffic drugs, can hide
evidence from the American people, can tamper with witnesses, can threaten
people, in some cases, maybe, even be involved with assassination - yes, I am
most definitely opposed. Look, the Clintons and the Bushes are the same. They
actually work together. They raised $138 mn dollars through a non-profit for Haitian
earthquake relief. They spent $10 million ,the pocketed a $128 million. It's in
this book. It will also be in my book, written from a different point of view,
on the Bushes. I just give that as one example of these two families working
together to line their own pockets.
SS: But surely, anyone who gets to be the
President of the U.S. is part of an elite, to an extent, seeing how expensive
it is to be elected, right? When was your last blue collar President?
RS: Well, let's see... Lyndon Johnson was a blue color
President, Richard Nixon was a blue collar President, Bill Clinton went to
Oxford...
SS: But that was a really long time ago.
RS: Yes, it was, because under our system, the special
interests pick and fund our Presidents. That's precisely why I am for Trump, he
doesn't need anybody's money, he can't be bought, he can't be bullied.
SS: And it's not like Donald Trump is
going to be a blue collar President if he wins, right?
RS: But he'll be an independent President. He will be
independent of the financial elite. He is not the candidate of Wall St. He is
not the candidate of big business. His only loyalty will be to the American
people. He isn't taking contributions from anyone. He is self-funded. The last
candidate for President for whom this was true, would have been billionaire
Ross Perot, in the 1990s. So, yes, I think we have had elitist Presidents,
that's precisely what I'm trying to change.
SS: Do you really think that Trump's
outspoken, show-business style will stop him taking the Presidency, or at
least, the nomination, in the end?
RS: It remains to be seen. In politics, a day, a night, is
a lifetime. But, so far - so good. He's not just leading the Republican field.
In some cases, like in South Carolina, which has an early, pivotal, primary,
he's leading by significant double digits: sometimes 20%, 22%, 23%. So, look,
all those people who said, and this was very common in the media and in
financial elite: "He's not running, he's never gonna run, this is a
publicity stunt to boost his brand and get his name on television and the
newspapers" - then those same people said: "He'll never file his
financial disclosures, he'll never tell the American people how much he's
really worth." Well, he filed on the deadline, it was Jeb Bush, who asked
for multiple extensions... and guess what? Donald Trump is worth ten billion
dollars! Now they say: "Well, he'll never stay in the race, he's gonna flop,
he'll drop out, he'll never show up on the debate stage" - and because he
was there, the debate audiences were almost four times the size they were three
years ago. The more people have watched the debates, the healthier it is for
our democracy.
SS: From your point of view, do the less
famous candidates have any real chance of being nominated?
RS: Yeah, they really do, for two reasons: on the
Republican side, all of the early delegate contests are proportional, none of
them are "winner-take-all", so the early contest, even though Trump
could win, let's say, the other minor candidates will begin accumulating
delegates. Then, secondarily, because of the Citizens United decision, and the
rise of the super PACs, the reason that the little-known candidates used to
drop out was because we're out of money. Now, that will not happen, because if
you have a billionaire in your corner, or two or three, you can stay in the
race as long as you want, and have plenty of money out there, pushing your name
and your agenda, and so on. So, I think you could be looking for a contest that
could go on, at least on the Republican side, as late as June.
SS: Now, does having a guy like Trump as
a leading contender, you know, someone who doesn't necessarily behave like your
regular run-of-the-mill politician, mean that regular politics, in general, is
not interesting anymore? Or, is his behaviour just a gimmick?
RS: I think, you put your finger on it. It's not that it's
not interesting, it's that people are fed up with it. They are tired of career
politicians, they are tired of candidates for President offering the 10-point
plan and going to back to Washington, loading up on a special interest money,
eating and drinking and pocketing contributions from the special interests and
nothing changes. I saw the Democratic debate, they talked about the horrific
black unemployment, about the fact that our infrastructure is falling apart,
the fact that our schools are terrible - Barack Obama has been President for
almost 8 years, they've had their way and their policies for 8 years, and
things haven't gotten better, particularly for African-americans in this
country, who are economically and education-wise, and in terms of the
incarceration rates, worse off than they were when Barack Obama started. So, I
think, they're just fed up with the system. They believe this system is broken,
they don't like either party, they distrust political institutions, they
distrust the Congress, they distrust the big media, they distrust the system,
which they believe, is rigged against the average person - and that's why
Trump, and, to a certain extent, Ben Carson, for example, and maybe even Bernie
Sanders, they are resonating, because voters see them as outsiders and
different from the other career politicians. Bernie Sanders isn't taking
special interest money, he's not taking PAC money. God bless him! I don't agree
with him, he says he's a Democratic Socialist, that's like a "meat-eating
vegetarian"; but, nonetheless, at least he has a courage in his convictions
and he isn't bought and paid for.
SS: Mr. Stone, thank you so much for this
interview, for your wonderful insight. We were talking to Roger Stone,
political strategist, former advisor to Presidents Nixon and Reagan, as well as
candidate Donald Trump, author of "Clinton's War on Women", talking
about the newest sensational allegations of abusive behaviour of Clinton
family, and what can that mean for the outcome of the U.S. Presidential
election. That's it for this edition of Sophie&Co, I will see you next
time.
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