Hillary's Former Finance Director on Trial

This is a partial transcript from "Hannity & Colmes," May 13, 2005, that has been edited for clarity.

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ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: The federal trial of Hillary Clinton's former finance director David Rosen continues in Los Angeles. Both defense attorneys and prosecutors say that Senator Clinton did not know about the alleged wrongdoing but will conservatives try to find the senator guilty by association? The answer is yes.

Joining us now is former Clinton advisor and Fox News contributor Doug Schoen.

Doug, trying to tie Hillary to this is purely political motivation by those who don't want her to be president, in my view.

DOUG SCHOEN, FORMER CLINTON ADVISOR: The prosecutors and defense attorneys said she is not involved. Judicial Watch has a complaint against her and right next to it on their Website is a fundraiser .

COLMES: And this issue of the judge being a Clinton appointee.

SCHOEN: I think that is silly. The judge has ruled against the defense. He said that the prior criminal acts of two of the witnesses aren't admissible. Judge Matz seems pretty fair to me.

COLMES: Here is what else the judge said. Let me put it up on the screen. He said, "Hillary Clinton is not in the loop in any direct way and this is something the jury will be told." And the prosecutor, to which we alluded a moment ago, has stated that the senator played absolutely though role in what happened with the campaign's finances. And, you know, what more needs to be said?

SCHOEN: Alan, these are technical violations of the FEC that are usually handled civilly, a large amount of money involved. Prosecutors made the decision that Mr. Rosen should be tried, it's a fact-based case. It has nothing to do with Senator Clinton.

COLMES: And what he actually said was, to give you more of the exact quote, "the alleged errors on the campaign finance reports made no difference to Mrs. Clinton's campaign coffers and the government has never argued and will never argue that her campaign benefited from the underreporting" which is really the key issue here.

SCHOEN: This is something that a candidate is usually not involved in. Candidates don't get involved in the details of what gets reported, how it gets reported. So I think it is clear that this is far removed from Hillary Clinton and is unlikely to have any impact on her political ...

COLMES: W had a problem. The FEC fined the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign $90,000 for using a separate secret bank account that raised $11 million and spent $13 million on the recount in 2000. That didn't seem to damage their credibility.

SCHOEN: I haven't heard much about that, Alan, I don't think they we're going to.

COLMES: So you are saying this is a matter of course. Why does ever campaign team seem to have some kind of financial .

SCHOEN: The rules are hyper technical and campaign finance requires a team of lawyers, a team of accountants to get things right. Campaigns make mistakes, people make mistakes. It's up to the courts to adjudicate.

COLMES: What about those who say she had all these horrible people around her .

SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: I'm sorry, let me ask you this, you just said this has nothing to do with her, the candidate is usually not involved, bottom line is you don't know. If Hillary knew, if in fact this guy, Rosen, her campaign finance director, her guy is guilty of hiding money and she knew about it, she would know about a crime, right? If she knew about what her campaign finance director did .

SCHOEN: We have a prosecutors, a judge and defense lawyers who all say she didn't know.

HANNITY: I know, but you don't know, do you? You are assuming because you like her, she didn't do anything wrong. But we don't know yet.

SCHOEN: There is no evidence that she knew anything about this.

HANNITY: Let's talk about the appropriateness of a judge in this case - forget about what your position of Hillary Clinton is.

SCHOEN: Sure.

HANNITY: The judge this it case was appointed by her husband and yet he is going to adjudicate a case involving her campaign finance director, no appearance of impropriety, no conflict of interest, he shouldn't recuse himself?

SCHOEN: He has made a couple of rulings as I was saying .

HANNITY: I don't care about that, is it a appropriate?

SCHOEN: It seems he has made a judgment that it is. And I don't have any reasons to believe that it isn't. Certainly, ideological judges on root you believe can go forward and make judgments involving conservative Republicans.

HANNITY: I like you because you are a fair guy.

SCHOEN: I try to be.

HANNITY: But said he has made a judgment. Do you think it would be more appropriate for him to recuse himself?

SCHOEN: At this point I can't say. But I can tell you this. My sense how he has handed the trial so far has been fair and appropriate.

HANNITY: You know what is somewhat troubling to me is he comes out at the beginning of case, "this isn't a trial about Senator Clinton. Senator Clinton has no stake in the trial, not a party or principal." wait a minute, if she knew and we haven't established the facts because I can read you if the in book, "The King of Kongs," Hollywood celebrity fundraiser Aaron Tompkin (ph) says, quote, about this very thing, that he gave her chapter and verse on the money that this guy Peter Paul (ph) was giving her, quote, "I told her about virtually every penny I had spent on her behalf." Quote, "I told her about the money and what a pleasure it was to spend it on her Senate candidacy." So there are people claiming, two of them, that in fact she did know.

SCHOEN: Mr. Tompkin is a convicted felon.

HANNITY: Just like Kathleen Wiley and Juanita Broderick and all the women .

SCHOEN: Well, I can only speak to Mr. Tompkin, who is a convicted .

HANNITY: And Peter Paul is a liar .

SCHOEN: And Peter Paul has also said .

HANNITY: Web Hubble.

SCHOEN: Can I finish? Judicial Watch is using this for political purposes to raise money.

HANNITY: And Jim Guy Tucker and Web Hubble and the MacDougals, just happenstance, the friends of Clintons.

SCHOEN: In this context, as Alan suggested, the prosecutors himself has said she has no knowledge.

COLMES: This is just political posturing. Thank you for being with us.

SCHOEN: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

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