Former lieutenant governor of New York Betsy McCaughey, Ph.D. brushed off claims that Donald Trump's campaign chairman may have taken off-the-books payments from Ukraine, calling it a "minuscule" issue that may not even be true.
"That's chump change compared with what Hillary and Bill Clinton have taken and documented and admitted to taking from corrupt regimes around the world," McCaughey told host Ed Berliner on Newmax TV's "The Hard Line."
"If it's simply invented, there's nothing that Donald Trump could do about it. Secondly, even if it does come up, it simply highlights how minuscule this issue is compared with the hundreds of millions of dollars that Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton have taken in speaking fees."
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When pressed further about whether she feels the report of Paul Manafort accepting nearly $13 million in cash payouts is true, McCaughey cast doubt on the New York Times story.
"No I don't [think it's true]. No."
Fellow panel member Pete Hoekstra, Shillman senior fellow with the Investigative Project on Terrorism and former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, drew a similar conclusion.
"No. 1, they're saying they may have, he may have. It's kind of like, let's get to the bottom of this," Hoekstra said. "If they're going to get into this kind of journalism then play it even handed, go after Manafort, go after the Clintons, go after the Clinton Foundation and all of these types of things but do it in a professional journalistic way, not just a hit piece on the Trump campaign and then let the facts fall where they may."
Hoekstra added "there's no substance" to the report.
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