][6]An Associated Press story in 1995 also used the phrase, relating an official's guess that the Oklahoma City bombing was the work of "maybe five malcontents" and not "some kind of vast right-wing conspiracy.
[10] Starr's investigation began to branch out into other issues, from Filegate, to Travelgate, to Bill Clinton's actions in the civil case of his alleged sexual harassment of Paula Jones prior to his presidency.
Clinton 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.
This is—the great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president.Clinton elaborated by decrying the tactics "and the kind of intense political agenda at work here."
Bob Woodward recounts in his book The Agenda (1994) that the 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.
He documented his experience in Blinded by the Right, wherein he alleged that Arkansas State Police troopers had taken money in exchange for testimony against Clinton which Brock had published in a previous book.
MSNBC 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.
"[16] By 2007, her experiences caused her 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.
Conason, in an article called "The vast right-wing conspiracy is back," referring to the National Republican Trust PAC and Newsmax, which are run by former foes of president Clinton, and who made attacks on then-President Barack Obama.
One of Newsmax's owners "was among the most insistent endorsers of the Obama birth certificate myth" and a popularizer of the canard that Clinton's White House counsel Vince Foster did not commit suicide—as determined by five official investigations—but was murdered.
[19] In some of his books, Krugman has used the phrase ("Yes, Virginia, there is a vast right-wing conspiracy"[20]) 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."
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.
"[24] Writers for the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post noted that Melania's response "echoed" Hillary's original use of the phrase "vast right-wing conspiracy.