vast right-wing conspiracy
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"Vast right-wing
conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agr ...
" is a phrase popularized by a 1995 memo by political opposition researcher Chris Lehane and then referenced in 1998 by the then
First Lady of the United States The first lady of the United States (FLOTUS) is the title held by the hostess of the White House, usually the wife of the president of the United States, concurrent with the president's term in office. Although the first lady's role has never ...
Hillary Rodham Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...
, in defense of her husband, President
Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again ...
, characterizing the continued allegations of scandal against her and her husband, including the
Lewinsky scandal Monica Samille Lewinsky (born July 23, 1973) is an American activist and writer. President Bill Clinton admitted to having an affair with Lewinsky while she worked at the White House as an intern in 1995 and 1996. The affair, and its repercus ...
, as part of a conspiracy by Clinton's political enemies. The term has been used since, including in a question posed to Bill Clinton in 2009 to describe verbal attacks on
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
during his early presidency. Hillary Clinton mentioned it again during her
2016 presidential campaign This national electoral calendar for 2016 lists the national/ federal elections held in 2016 in all sovereign states and their dependent territories. By-elections are excluded, though national referendums are included. January *7 January: Kiri ...
.


Earlier uses

While popularized by Mrs. Clinton in her 1998 TODAY Show interview, the phrase did not originate with her. In 1991 the ''
Detroit News ''The Detroit News'' is one of the two major newspapers in the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan. The paper began in 1873, when it rented space in the rival ''Detroit Free Press'' building. ''The News'' absorbed the ''Detroit Tribune'' on Februar ...
'' wrote: An ''
Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. new ...
'' story in 1995 also used the phrase, relating an official's guess that the
Oklahoma City bombing The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorist truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, on April 19, 1995. Perpetrated by two anti-government extremists, Timothy McVeigh and T ...
was the work of "maybe five malcontents" and not "some kind of vast right-wing conspiracy."


1995 memo

A 332-page memo titled "Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce" was commissioned by Mark Fabiani and written by Chris Lehane in 1995. It was the first document to describe the conspiracies surrounding the Clintons, which Hillary Clinton later popularized with the term "vast right-wing conspiracy." It described how online conservative media outlets such as '' The American Spectator'' spread conspiracy theories about the
suicide of Vince Foster Deputy White House counsel Vince Foster was found dead in Fort Marcy Park off the George Washington Parkway in Virginia, outside Washington, D.C., on July 20, 1993. His death was ruled a suicide by five official investigations. Suicide and inve ...
, the
Whitewater controversy The Whitewater controversy, Whitewater scandal, Whitewatergate, or simply Whitewater, was an American political controversy during the 1990s. It began with an investigation into the real estate investments of Bill and Hillary Clinton and their as ...
, and other events. According to the memo, these conspiracies spread from conservative think tanks to British tabloids, and then to the mainstream press.


''The Today Show'' interview

In response to ongoing accusations surrounding the Clintons' investment in a real estate development known as
Whitewater Whitewater forms in a rapid context, in particular, when a river's gradient changes enough to generate so much turbulence that air is trapped within the water. This forms an unstable current that froths, making the water appear opaque and ...
in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Clinton's
Attorney General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...
Janet Reno Janet Wood Reno (July 21, 1938 – November 7, 2016) was an American lawyer who served as the 78th United States attorney general. She held the position from 1993 to 2001, making her the second-longest serving attorney general, behind only Wi ...
had appointed an independent counsel, Kenneth Starr, to investigate those accusations in 1994. Starr's investigation began to branch out into other issues, from
Filegate The White House FBI files controversy of the Clinton Administration, often referred to as Filegate,
to Travelgate to Bill Clinton's actions in the civil case of his alleged sexual harassment of
Paula Jones Paula Corbin Jones (born Paula Rosalee Corbin; September 17, 1966) is an American civil servant. A former Arkansas state employee, Jones sued United States President Bill Clinton for sexual harassment in 1994. In the initial lawsuit, Jones cite ...
prior to his presidency. In the course of the last of these,
White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...
intern Monica Lewinsky signed an affidavit that she had not had a relationship with Clinton, but Lewinsky's confidant Linda Tripp had been recording their phone conversations and offered Starr tapes of Lewinsky describing her feelings for, and alleging intimate encounters with, the president. The president was asked to give a deposition, and accusations that he lied about an affair under oath first made national headlines on January 17, 1998, when the story was picked up by the conservative-right e-mail newsletter ''
The Drudge Report The Drudge Report (stylized as DRUDGE REPORT) is a U.S.-based news aggregation website founded by Matt Drudge, and run with the help of Charles Hurt and Daniel Halper. The site was generally regarded as a conservative publication, though its ow ...
''. Despite swift denials from President Clinton, the media attention grew. On January 27, 1998, Hillary Clinton appeared on
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
's ''
The Today Show ''Today'' (also called ''The Today Show'' or informally, ''NBC News Today'') is an American news and talk morning television show that airs weekdays from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. on NBC. The program debuted on January 14, 1952. It ...
'', in an interview with
Matt Lauer Matthew Todd Lauer (; born December 30, 1957) is an American former television news personality, best known for his work with NBC News. After serving as a local news personality in New York City on WNBC, his first national exposure was as the ne ...
. Clinton elaborated by decrying the tactics "and the kind of intense political agenda at work here".
Bob Woodward Robert Upshur Woodward (born March 26, 1943) is an American investigative journalist. He started working for '' The Washington Post'' as a reporter in 1971 and now holds the title of associate editor. While a young reporter for ''The Washingt ...
recounts in his book ''The Agenda'' (1994) that the then-first lady claimed that when her husband was making his decision to run for the presidency in 1991, he reported receiving "a direct threat from someone in the Bush White House, warning that if he ran, the Republicans would go after him. 'We will do everything we can to destroy you personally,' she recalled that the Bush White House man had said."


Later uses

David Brock David Brock (born July 23, 1962) is an American liberal political consultant, author, and commentator who founded the media watchdog group Media Matters for America. He has been described by ''Time'' as "one of the most influential operatives ...
, a conservative-turned-liberal author, has said he was once a part of an effort to dredge up a scandal against Clinton. In 1993 Brock, then of the ''
American Spectator ''The American Spectator'' is a conservative American magazine covering news and politics, edited by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. and published by the non-profit American Spectator Foundation. It was founded in 1967 by Tyrrell, who remains its edito ...
'', was the first to report Paula Jones' claims. As Brock explained in ''
Blinded by the Right ''Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative'' is a 2002 book written by former conservative journalist David Brock detailing his departure from the conservative movement. It is also the story of his coming out as a gay man. In ...
'', after learning more about the events and conservative payments surrounding
Paula Jones Paula Corbin Jones (born Paula Rosalee Corbin; September 17, 1966) is an American civil servant. A former Arkansas state employee, Jones sued United States President Bill Clinton for sexual harassment in 1994. In the initial lawsuit, Jones cite ...
he personally apologized to the Clintons. He documented his experience in ''Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative'', wherein he alleged that Arkansas state troopers had taken money in exchange for testimony against Clinton which Brock had published in a previous book.
Adam Curtis Adam Curtis (born 26 May 1955) is an English documentary filmmaker. Curtis began his career as a conventional documentary producer for the BBC throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s. The release of '' Pandora's Box'' (1992) marked t ...
also discusses the concept in his documentary series ''
The Power of Nightmares ''The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear'' is a BBC television documentary series by Adam Curtis. It mainly consists of archive footage, with Curtis narrating. The series was originally broadcast in the United Kingdom in 2004 ...
''. Brock has agreed with Clinton's claim that there was a "right wing conspiracy" to smear her husband, quibbling only with the characterization of it as "vast", since Brock contends that it was orchestrated mainly by a few powerful people.
MSNBC MSNBC (originally the Microsoft National Broadcasting Company) is an American news-based pay television cable channel. It is owned by NBCUniversala subsidiary of Comcast. Headquartered in New York City, it provides news coverage and political ...
also described the comment as once-ridiculed but now taken more seriously by "many Democrats" who point "to the well-documented efforts by conservative financier Richard Mellon Scaife to fund a network of anti-Clinton investigations." Specific claims of such funding have been made against conservative Republican supporter and billionaire
Richard Mellon Scaife Richard Mellon Scaife (; July 3, 1932 – July 4, 2014) was an American billionaire, a principal heir to the Mellon banking, oil, and aluminum fortune, and the owner and publisher of the ''Pittsburgh Tribune-Review''. In 2005, Scaife was n ...
. Scaife played a major role in funding the
Arkansas Project The Arkansas Project was a series of investigative press reports, funded primarily by conservative businessman Richard Mellon Scaife, that focused on criticism of then-President Bill Clinton and his administration. Scaife spent nearly $2 million o ...
investigating President Clinton; former Clinton
White House Counsel The White House counsel is a senior staff appointee of the president of the United States whose role is to advise the president on all legal issues concerning the president and their administration. The White House counsel also oversees the Of ...
Lanny Davis claimed Scaife was using his money "to destroy a president of the United States." Scaife claims to be public about his political spending (q.v.). CNN stated in a study the news outlet conducted on Scaife, "If it's a conspiracy, it's a pretty open one." Hillary Clinton wrote in her 2003 autobiography, "Looking back, I see that I might have phrased my point more artfully, but I stand by the characterization of Starr's investigation egardless of the truth about Lewinsky" By 2007 her experiences caused Hillary Clinton to say in presidential campaign appearances that the vast right-wing conspiracy was back, citing such cases as the
2002 New Hampshire Senate election phone jamming scandal The 2002 New Hampshire Senate election phone jamming scandal involved the use of a telemarketing firm hired by that state's Republican Party (NHGOP) for election tampering. The tampering involved using a call center to jam the phone lines of ...
. On the stump for
Al Franken Alan Stuart Franken (born May 21, 1951) is an American comedian, politician, media personality, and author who served as a United States senator from Minnesota from 2009 to 2018. He gained fame as a writer and performer on the television comed ...
's 2008 Senate campaign, Bill Clinton acknowledged his
Air America Radio Air America (formerly Air America Radio and Air America Media) was an American radio network specializing in progressive talk radio. It was on the air from March 2004 to January 2010. The network was founded as a left wing alternative to counter ...
show by quipping that he had been taking on the "vast right wing conspiracy before others even acknowledged that it existed". Former President Clinton, when asked on ''
Meet the Press ''Meet the Press'' is a weekly American television Sunday morning talk shows, news/interview program broadcast on NBC. It is the List of longest-running television shows by category, longest-running program on American television, though the curr ...
'' (September 27, 2009) whether the vast right wing conspiracy was involved in the attacks on President
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
, said "Oh, you bet. Sure it is. It's not as strong as it was, because America's changed demographically, but it's as virulent as it was ... when they accused me of murder and all that stuff."Meet the Press, 21 Sept. 2009
transcript
/ref> Two other figures who have used the phrase are Nobel laureate economist
Paul Krugman Paul Robin Krugman ( ; born February 28, 1953) is an American economist, who is Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and a columnist for ''The New York Times''. In 2008, Krugman was t ...
and journalist
Joe Conason Joe Conason (born January 25, 1954) is an American journalist, author and liberal political commentator. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of ''The National Memo'', a daily political newsletter and website that features breaking news and comm ...
. Conason, in an article called "The vast right-wing conspiracy is back," refers the National Republican Trust PAC and
Newsmax Media Newsmax (Newsmax Media, Inc. or Newsmax.com, previously styled NewsMax) is an American right-wing to far-right cable news and digital media company founded by Christopher Ruddy on September 16, 1998. Newsmax Media divisions include its cable ...
, which are run by former foes of Bill Clinton and who made attacks on then-President Barack Obama. The National Republican Trust PAC sponsored a campaign commercials against Obama in 2008 which FactCheck.org described as "one of the sleaziest false TV ads of the campaign." One of Newsmax Media's owners "was among the most insistent endorsers of the Obama birth certificate myth" and a popularizer of the canard that Bill Clinton's White House counsel
Vince Foster Vincent Walker Foster Jr. (January 15, 1945 – July 20, 1993) was an American attorney who served as deputy White House counsel during the first six months of the Clinton administration. Foster had been a partner at Rose Law Firm in Lit ...
did not commit suicide—as determined by five official investigations—but was murdered. In some of his books, Krugman has used the phrase ("Yes, Virginia, there is a vast right-wing conspiracy") to refer not to a conservative Republican-leaning campaign against Clinton (or Obama), but more generally to "an interlocking set of institutions ultimately answering to a small group of people that collectively reward loyalists and punish dissenters" in the service of "
movement conservatism Movement conservatism is a term used by political analysts to describe conservatives in the United States since the mid-20th century and the New Right. According to George H. Nash (2009) the movement comprises a coalition of five distinct impulse ...
." The network of institutions provide
obedient politicians with the resources to win elections, safe havens in the event of defeat, and lucrative career opportunities after they leave office. They guarantee favorable news coverage to politicians who follow the party line, while harassing and undermining opponents. And they support a large standing army of party intellectuals and activists.
In Krugman's view, the network of foundations that fund conservative scholarship, the national and regional think tanks and advocacy groups, talk radio media outlets, and conservative law firms through which they pushed their agenda to move the Republican Party to the right, far surpass in funding, size, inter-connectedness or influence anything the
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...
or the American political left/liberal movement have at their disposal.


2014 reemergence

In April 2014, the
Clinton Presidential Center The William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum is the presidential library of Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States (1993–2001). It is located in Little Rock, Arkansas and includes the Clinton Presidential Library, ...
published the original 1995 memo on the alleged conspiracy. The memo's author, Chris Lehane, wrote, "As for the premise of the memo, I absolutely stand by it. Not only was it right about the right wing then, it is more accurate than ever today."


2016 reemergence

In 2016, Hillary Clinton said she still believed in the "vast right-wing conspiracy", adding that it was "even better funded" 18 years later. However, she opined, "At this point it's probably not correct to say it's a conspiracy because it's out in the open." In October, after
footage In filmmaking and video production, footage is raw, unedited material as originally filmed by a movie camera or recorded by a ( often special) video camera, which typically must be edited to create a motion picture, video clip, television show or ...
of
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
boasting about his sexual exploits emerged and multiple women accused Trump of sexual misconduct,
Melania Trump Melania Trump ( ; born Melanija Knavs , Germanized as Melania Knauss ; born April 26, 1970) is a Slovene-American former model and businesswoman who served as First Lady of the United States from 2017 to 2021 as the wife of 45th president Do ...
defended her husband and said, "This was all organized from the opposition." Writers for the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'' and ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' noted that Melania's response "echoed" Hillary's original use of the phrase "vast right-wing conspiracy."


Use in popular culture

After the release of a deposition Bill Clinton had given to the Independent Counsel in which he perjured himself, some conservatives began to adopt the VRWC phrasing ironically. In 2004, conservative lawyer Mark W. Smith wrote the ''New York Times'' Best Seller '' Official Handbook of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy'', which came with a "membership card" that made its owner an "official member of the VRWC." Similarly, a number of newspaper, magazine, and website articles have used the phrase to report on
left-wing politics Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soc ...
.
Eugene Volokh Eugene Volokh (; born February 29, 1968 as Yevhen Volodymyrovych Volokh ( uk, Євге́н Володимирович Волох)) is an American legal scholar known for his scholarship in American constitutional law and libertarianism as well as ...
's blog
The Volokh Conspiracy The Volokh Conspiracy ( ) is a blog co-founded in 2002 by law professor Eugene Volokh, covering legal and political issues from an ideological orientation it describes as "generally libertarian, conservative, centrist, or some mixture of these." ...
is said to have derived its name from as a reference to the "Vast right-wing conspiracy" statement. The term "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" continues to be mocked by conservatives.


See also

* Clinton crazies *
Basket of deplorables "Basket of deplorables" is a phrase from a 2016 presidential election campaign speech delivered by Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton on September 9, 2016, at a campaign fundraising event, which she used to describe half of the supporters of her ...


References


Notes


Sources

* * *


Further reading

* * *


External links


Transcript of Hillary Clinton interview
on
NBC Today Show ''Today'' (also called ''The Today Show'' or informally, ''NBC News Today'') is an American news and talk morning television show that airs weekdays from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. on NBC. The program debuted on January 14, 1952. It w ...

Who's funding the Conservative Movement?
;Media coverage
Video: Hillary Clinton Speaks Out on Lewinsky Allegations
via ''
NBC Today Show ''Today'' (also called ''The Today Show'' or informally, ''NBC News Today'') is an American news and talk morning television show that airs weekdays from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. on NBC. The program debuted on January 14, 1952. It w ...
'', January 27, 1998
Hillary Clinton: 'This Is A Battle'
''
CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
'', January 27, 1998
Washington Post: First Lady Launches Counterattack
''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', January 28, 1998
Caught In The Whitewater Net
'' CBS News'', May 19, 1998
It's no accident that Coors is the right beer in America
undated
The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy 2011: Less Vast- More Powerful
Rick Ungar, ''
Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...
'', March 21, 2011
Why Not Occupy Newsrooms?
October 24, 2011 {{Portal bar, Politics, United States American political catchphrases Conspiracy theories by subject Conspiracy theories in the United States English phrases Hillary Clinton Clinton–Lewinsky scandal Political terminology of the United States Right-wing politics