Media Still Can’t Trust Anti-Clinton Author Ed Klein
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published
Discredited reporter Ed Klein is set to release a new book, Guilty as Sin, on October 4, in which he claims to have uncovered “the real story” of the FBI investigation into Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s private email server, as well as of President Bill Clinton’s continuous affairs with interns.
Klein’s has a long history of promoting false conspiracy theories about the Clintons, including the claim that Chelsea Clinton was conceived when Bill raped Hillary. Klein’s previous books have been roundly criticized by a wide range of reporters, including many conservatives. His supposed reporting has been labeled “bullshit,” “smut,” “junk journalism,” and “fan fiction.”
Conservative media outlets The Daily Caller and the New York Post published excerpts of Klein’s new book on October 2. The Post excerpt offered an alleged account of “the ex-president continu[ing] his cozy relationships with interns” and “mus[ing] about naked pool parties on the roof.” The Daily Caller excerpt recycled several debunked claims that Hillary Clinton openly dealt with Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative work from her seventh floor State Department office while she served as secretary of state. Klein also promoted his book on the right-wing blog Breitbart News, claiming that Clinton “is often totally out of control -- screaming and sometimes even physically attacking people, including her husband and campaign workers.”
The discredited author’s claims made it onto Fox News when Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade cited Klein’s upcoming book to suggest Bill Clinton may be engaged in affairs with interns at the Clinton library in Little Rock, AR. From the October 3 edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends:
AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): Here’s the thing -- it's just a double standard. She’s going after Donald Trump for talking about women, and she says that about Gennifer Flowers. However, I do think that she has every right to hire a private investigator. If you have the money to do that, if your husband is doing all of this --
STEVE DOOCY (CO-HOST): Who, Hillary?
EARHARDT: That’s not illegal. If your husband is having affairs and you want to catch him --
BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): Here's the thing, if you want to find out because it's going to save your marriage for one thing, but if you want to hammer the women because politically it's damaging to the Clinton name --
EARHARDT: That's never --
KILMEADE: That is totally different
EARHARDT: Right.
KILMEADE: I want to find out the truth. I sense that she knew the truth and wanted to defame the woman and the accuser. That's what Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey and Gennifer Flowers would say.
DOOCY: And that’s just several. That’s three out of close to two dozen.
KILMEADE: Right, which, according to Ed Klein, our guest tomorrow, might be still happening in the Clinton library, if you are to believe that book.
Klein’s previous work has been panned by both conservative and mainstream media figures alike. The Washington Examiner’s Byron York said his last book, Unlikeable: The Problem with Hillary, was “denounced as a whole pack of lies,” and in 2014 even conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh dismissed Klein’s unsourced quotes as “odd.” Over 30 mainstream reporters slammed Klein’s work as “poorly written, poorly thought, poorly sourced” “junk journalism” with “numerous factual errors,” written by “an author devoid of credibility.”
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has repeatedly promoted Klein’s books on his Twitter account. Trump had lunch with Klein in May, and Klein says he has known Trump for 35 years and has “met with him on numerous occasions, talked to him on the phone countless times, traveled with him, and written two lengthy magazine cover stories about him.”