Vast right-wing conspiracy

"Vast right-wing conspiracy" is a conspiracy theory first described in a 1995 memo by political opposition researcher Chris Lehane and then referenced in 1998 by the then First Lady of the United States Hillary Clinton, in defense of her husband, President Bill Clinton, characterizing the continued allegations of scandal against her and her husband, including the Lewinsky scandal, as part of a long campaign by Clinton's political enemies. The term has been used since, including in a question posed to Bill Clinton in 2009 to describe verbal attacks on Barack Obama during his early presidency. Hillary Clinton mentioned it again during her 2016 presidential campaign.

While popularized by Mrs. Clinton in her 1998 interview, the phrase did not originate with her. In 1991 the Detroit News wrote:

Thatcher-era Britain produced its own crop of paranoid left-liberal films. ... All posited a vast right-wing conspiracy propping up a reactionary government ruthlessly crushing all efforts at opposition under the guise of parliamentary democracy. [Emphasis added.]

An AP 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."

A 332-page memo titled "Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce" was commissioned by Mark Fabiani and written by Chris Lehane in 1995. It was the first document to describe the conspiracies surrounding the Clintons, which Hillary Clinton later popularized with the term "vast right-wing conspiracy." It described how online conservative media outlets such as The American Spectator spread conspiracy theories about the suicide of Vince Foster, the Whitewater controversy, and other events. According to the memo, these conspiracies spread from conservative think tanks to British tabloids, and then to the mainstream press.

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