There is a reason why confidence in the “media” is tanking and readership and viewers are dwindling. Look no further than at The Week’s Charles Laurence’s hit piece, The Plot to ‘gut’ Hillary Clinton: dark arts and cheap journalism, where he tried to smear me by publishing false statements about me and ends up discrediting himself.
Laurence didn’t even bother to speak to me or read my Clinton books, The Whistleblower and Following Orders, before the article went to press.
In part, had Mr. Laurence spoken to me, and adhered to some form of journalism, ethics and common decency, he would have known the original source regarding any alleged claims about Hillary Clinton’s role in Waco, repeated anywhere, including but not limited to, The National Enquirer, is not me (I did not write about WACO in my books either), it would be Linda Tripp. Linda Tripp served in the Clinton White House counsel’s office, was there when Waco happened and has spoken publicly about it. Not me, and certainly not I-am-a-political-hack Mr. Laurence.
See for example: Linda Tripp – Hillary Ordered Waco Slaughter & Clinton Abused Monica, Newsmax and Linda Tripp on CNN’s Larry King, February 9, 2001.
Who is guilty of cheap journalism Mr. Laurence?
As NPR recounted, on February 28, 1993, “federal agents clashed with David Koresh’s Branch Davidian community near Waco, Texas. The standoff ended with a raid and fire that killed some 80 people. It’s remembered as one of the darkest chapters in American law enforcement history.”
Moreover, would it surprise Mr. Laurence to learn that NE likes to slice and dice quotes?
Further by writing with authority that I “should not be believed,” than I guess it is reasonable to assume that Mr. Laurence, and the formerly respectable The Week are Vince Foster murder conspiracy peddlers. The reason why I’m saying that is because Mr. Laurence does not say why I should not be believed, and I don’t believe the Clintons murdered their long-time friend and confidante, Vince Foster, who tragically took his own life about six months into the Clinton administration.
Again, Mr. Charles Laurence would have known that had he bothered to read my Clinton books or spoken to me before he wrote his hit piece. And I’m the one with credibility issues…?
That being said, indeed. I know my books are damaging to Hillary Clinton’s future presidential bid because they document her real record supported, in part, by the Congressional record and multiple Office of Independent Counsel investigations. Mrs. Clinton’s record is not good–that is not my fault. I’m just the journalist here, who does not vote in US elections. Reporting accurately, backed up with source material, does not make me a right-winger either. Hillary Clinton’s verifiable record was the inspiration for why I created the Hillary 2016 campaign. Prison or POTUS?
POTUS–President of the United States.
This campaign slogan may also may apply to Republican politicos in the future. That makes me an honest journalist and not a hack, like Mr. Laurence. Funny business is not exclusive to one political party, doncha know?
I immediately contacted the editors at The Week after I read Laurence’s hit piece to alert them to his inaccurate “reporting.” The Week circled the wagons, attempted to defend their journalist’s indefensible conduct, and agreed to publish a response from me. Then they buried it under Laurence’s hit piece in the comment section, I guess hoping nobody would notice.
It would have been proper to have retracted, and published my response as a separate story, or a letter to the editor, which would have received similar readers and traffic. I also asked them to publish an excerpt from Following Orders prologue. Let their readers decide who is credible and who is not.
They refused. I think this shows what little respect they have for their readers, given they are knowingly, maliciously deceiving them.
Failure to retract and/or provide equal space is why people are losing trust in the media. Thus, since my response is buried in The Week’s comment section I am reproducing it here below.
Welcome to the politics of personal destruction which will only succeed if you do not respond to smears or false allegations with the truth. Always, always respond or their lies will stick. Here we go:
I’m the investigative journalist Charles Laurence recently hammered in his article The plot to ‘gut’ Hillary Clinton: dark arts and cheap journalism. He was addressing a National Enquirer story that claimed there is a secret right-wing cabal that is plotting to spend $500 million to destroy Hillary Clinton’s quest to become president. The Enquirer asserted I was Secret #1 and Secret #2 out of 8 shocking secrets.
I didn’t write the Enquirer article, I was just quoted in it. Just the same Mr. Laurence lumped me in with the rest of the co-conspirators in the alleged cabal. Mr. Laurence’s article also attacked me personally as well as The Enquirer. In this reply, I’ll focus on some facts to show how inaccurate and wrong Mr. Laurence is—about me and about Hillary Clinton. The Enquirer can decide for itself whether to respond.
For starters, Mr. Laurence states that The Enquirer engages in “cheap” journalism. Yet he inaccurately portrays me as a cohort of former right-wing hitman David Brock who “broke the Whitewater story” and “triumphantly introduced Bill Clinton the serial adulterer.” Having cast aspersions on my professional reputation, Mr. Laurence asks readers, “But why should we believe a word from Peschmann or any other of Brock’s “right wing road warriors” sure to cash in on 2016?”
Where do I begin? First, it is totally inaccurate of Mr. Laurence to portray me as a pawn or cohort of Mr. Brock. Do I have a relationship to Mr. Brock? No. I have never met or spoken to him. Neither am I working with any highly funded right-wing group. Indeed, I work as an independent journalist, not employed by any group. Some time ago, Brock jumped from the “right” to the “left” where he now collects a salary from the well funded Media Matters, an organization interestingly started by the subject of the Enquirer article, Hillary Clinton.
Had Lawrence contacted me to comment, as is typical practice for journalists, I could have saved him the embarrassment of such sloppy inaccuracies and far-out assertions.
Mr. Laurence could learn a thing or two about investigative journalism from The Enquirer (whom he is so quick to deride) since one of the writers of the article at least had the temerity to call me and ask some pointed questions, for which I gave direct and provable answers based on over a decade of interviews and research.
Am I cashing in as Mr. Laurence contends? Well, unlike David Brock, whose organization is funded by billionaire fans of Hillary Clinton, I pull no salary from my journalism. Getting a book out and published on the Clinton White House was tough stuff, a long and arduous journey. The Clintons don’t like it when you write accurately about them. There were publishers who refused to read my book proposals or review the evidence I had compiled. Sound farfetched? Au contraire. The public, was finally, thankfully, able to witness (again) how hard it is to report the truth about the Clintons during Hillary Clinton’s failed 2008 presidential bid.
Remember when Politico reported, Clinton Campaign kills negative story? GQ Magazine was instructed to kill the piece they were writing on the infighting in Hillary’s campaign or lose access to Bill Clinton for their “Man of the Year” December issue. GQ Magazine caved and spiked the story. That was not the first time the public could see in real-time the hardball tag-team media control, the Clintons wield to keep the truth from the public.
Mr. Laurence can also verify this with journalist and author Michael Isikoff. Newsweek killed one of his stories too. A really big one that changed the course of history after the Drudge Report dared to do what the mainstream press would not do and published an “anti” Clinton story that led to that impeachment thing.
Wow. Newsweek really blew it when they protected the Clintons. As Marlon Brando said in one of the most famous scenes in film history in that movie classic, On the Waterfront, “I could have been a contender.”
Instead of being silenced or succumbing to censorship (which was a lucrative option … where is the $500 million right-wing cabal when you need them?) I did my books myself, which I alone painstakingly researched, sourced and wrote. Mr. Laurence suggests mercenary intent because I “promote” my books and sell Hillary 2016 campaign—Prison or POTUS? merchandise on my website (marinkapeschmann.com) as a public service to alert people to look at Hillary’s suppressed record of dodging criminal indictments instead of believing the fantastical spin her well-paid handlers pump out. Yes, I do promote my books. Most authors do.
Concerned about self-promotion for profit, Mr. Laurence might notice he makes an exception for himself at his website (charleslaurence.com) where he promotes his book, The Social Agent. He makes another exception, too, for Hillary Clinton. Clinton received “a near record advance of about $8 million dollars” from Simon & Schuster for Living History, a book which Hillary did not write herself but reportedly paid three ghostwriters to prepare, start to finish.
So, I don’t publish for money or enjoy a cabal’s financial support. I’m just willing to ask questions no one wants to ask. Report information others are evidently to afraid to touch. This makes people vested in the status quo uncomfortable. My Clinton books, The Whistleblower: How the Clinton White House Stayed in Power to Reemerge in the Obama White House and World Stage and also Following Orders, Death of Vince Foster, Clinton White House Lawyer are based on a over a decade of research and interviews. I have nothing against Hillary Clinton personally, but facts compel me to report an accurate account of the Clintons record. The public has a right to know.
Yet, Mr. Laurence with his vaporous research erroneously wrote: “The Enquirer uses material from Peschmann’s books alleging that the Reno letter would be a “smoking gun” that proves that Hillary, without proper authority, ordered the 1993 FBI/ATF raid on the Branch Davidian religious cult at Waco, Texas, which resulted in the deaths of 74 men, women and children.”
If he had bothered to read either of my Clinton books, he would know what he wrote was inaccurate. For future vetting and reference my website also links to over 400 source items for my book, The Whistleblower, in the endnote section.
Mr. Laurence wrote that “Peschmann used her website yesterday both to promote her books and to distance herself from the ‘Plot to Destroy Hillary’.” All I did is what most professional journalists do. After The National Enquirer’s “world exclusive” article came out, I published clarifying facts with documentation. I have no direct knowledge of this alleged anti-Hillary $500 million plot. I hope it is true. There’s no scandal in that, unless you want facts suppressed, which is the case if you defend Hillary Clinton.
Was I trying to distance myself from the Enquirer? The Enquirer wrote, “Peschmann also believes that Foster’s death triggered a massive cover-up by the Clinton administration and declared: “Hillary should not be in the White House. She should be in jail.”
Why would I distance myself from that? My conclusion is supported by the Congressional record and multiple congressionally funded Office of Independent Counsel investigations, which detailed un-prosecuted crimes during the Clinton White House era. I’ve also had extensive access with the person who was “officially” determined to have been the last person to have seen Vince Foster alive—she served in Hillary’s White House counsel’s office.
Examples abound to support my conclusion and my quote. I’ll offer one here, as reported in my book Following Orders: Death of Vince Foster, Clinton White House Lawyer.
The Senate Whitewater Committee called [the Vince Foster investigation] a ‘sham.’ The Committee found that [Hillary’s] counsel’s office, government lawyers, ‘who were supposed to protect public interest in a proper investigation and faithful execution of the laws, instead interfered and obstructed various federal investigations. Unquestionably, the Department of Justice and Park Police were authorized to conduct this investigation, and White House officials owed them a duty to cooperate. Instead, law enforcement officials were confronted at every turn with concerted efforts to deny them access to evidence in Mr. Foster’s office. The committee concluded: “The actions of these senior White House officials constitute a highly improper pattern of deliberate misconduct,” or as it would be called for everyday Americans, obstruction of justice.
A highly improper pattern of deliberate misconduct is another term for obstruction of justice. Attempting to lead a government investigation astray is a crime. Neither Hillary nor any of her staff were held accountable. This is only one example of many where Hillary Clinton has escaped prosecution.
What America needs is an honest prosecutor, judiciary, and attorney general, who adhers to the rule of law—and does not succumb to the court of public opinion influenced by biased journalists who report left versus right as opposed to right versus wrong, to promote corrupt public figures like Hillary Clinton.
I intend to continue to study the facts, not the media persona or spin, and to write what is true and accurate. Mr. Laurence may find my doggedness a liability; I find his relationship to facts sadly wanting—but all too common. I wish him luck defending the indefensible Hillary Clinton as she moves into the 2016 election cycle.
I would, however, like to thank The Week’s editors for allowing me speak on behalf of my journalistic integrity. As for the content of my work, I hope they will publish an excerpt from the prologue of my book, Following Orders, permitting readers to decide who is credible and who is not.
Regarding the National Enquirer they, too, may well provide proof that an alleged deep-pocketed anti-Clinton cabal exists, as they eventually did when former Democrat presidential contender John Edwards was heading into a primary. I hope The Enquirer’s editors will be as gracious as The Weekly has been in allowing me to address their readership directly.
Even if the anti-Hillary cabal identified by The Enquirer does exist, I don’t think Hillary and crew are that concerned…they may already be a day late and a billion dollars or so short. I’ve been hearing that the super PAC seeking Hillary’s nomination is expected to start the campaign with about a billion-seven in their war chest. If so, that $500 million cabal will just be a speed bump on Hillary’s path to POTUS. If so I hope the cabal has a little extra space in their decommissioned missile silo escape site. I may need an eight-year or more vacation. All I can say to the alleged anti-Hillary cabal is to please call me … soon.
— Marinka Peschmann