Clinton Campaign Fighting Financial Accusations

Hillary Rodham Clinton faced tough questions about growing accusations over her family's foreign financial ties Monday. It came during her first trip to New Hampshire since declaring her candidacy for president.

Over the weekend, 17 declared and potential Republican candidates visited the Granite State, blasting away at Clinton's finances and the decisions she made as secretary of state.

"I think that her dereliction of duty, her not doing her job, her not providing security for our forces, for our diplomatic missions, should forever preclude her from holding higher office," said presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.

So far Clinton has only been holding low-key campaign events, meeting with small, hand-picked groups of supporters.

But reporters in New Hampshire did manage to catch up with Clinton, asking about the growing financial questions surrounding her family's foundation.

They referred to Peter Schweizer's coming book, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich.

Clinton pushed back against the accusations that foreign governments that made donations to the Clintons' charity received preferential treatment from the State Department while she served in the Obama administration.

"We will be subjected to all kinds of distractions and attacks," she said.

But she refused to answer the questions, saying, "Those issues in my view are distractions from what this campaign should be about, what I'm going to make this campaign about."

In the end, Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta rolled out a dismissive argument reminiscent of the "vast right wing conspiracy" phrase coined by Hillary when Bill Clinton was president.

Bashing Schweizer for his book, Podesta told PBS, "He's cherry picked information that's been disclosed and woven a bunch of conspiracy theories about it."

The financial dealings of the Clinton Foundation have made headlines in recent weeks, and Republicans have argued they raise questions about Hillary Clinton's character.

Even in the mainstream media, the foundation has come under scrutiny for accepting foreign contributions, including from Middle Eastern nations that deny equal rights for women.