On the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton frequently decries the influence that monied donors have on the political process. But behind closed doors, in speeches at Goldman Sachs events, she urged members of the donor class to exert their influence––especially on recalcitrant Republicans.
Wikileaks released emails on Oct. 15 containing what it says are full transcripts of three paid speeches that Clinton gave at Goldman Sachs events. The Clinton campaign didn’t comment on the validity of these transcripts. Publicly, the campaign has asserted that the Russian government is responsible for the release of the emails––which were hacked from campaign chairman John Podesta’s Gmail account.
“There is no getting around it: Donald Trump is cheering on a Russian attempt to influence our election through a crime reminiscent of Watergate but on a more massive scale,” said campaign spokesperson Glen Caplin in a statement emailed to The Daily Beast. “We’re witnessing another effort to steal private campaign documents in order to influence an election. Only this time, instead of filing cabinets, it’s people’s emails they’re breaking into and a foreign government is behind it. Oddly, Trump continues to defend Putin and deflect blame. It’s time for Donald Trump to condemn this intrusion by the Kremlin and tell voters what did his campaign know and when did they know it.”
On Saturday, Wikileaks released transcripts from three speeches, all delivered in 2013. The first was on June 4, and the next two were on Oct. 24 and Oct. 29, right after the conclusion of the short-lived partial government shutdown. You can download and read the speeches here. In all three speeches, Clinton argued that political donors should use their influence to push politicians to be more compromising.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/10/15/hillary-clinton-encouraged-rich-bankers-to-influence-politics.html
“New York is kind of an ATM machine for both Democrats and Republicans,” she said in the June 6 speech. “And people come up and they visit with many of you and they ask for money, and often they’re given––if they’re coming they’re going to get it. And at some point the American public––and particularly political givers––have to say: Here––and it’s not just about me. It’s not just about my personal standings. Here are things I want you to do for the country and be part of that debate about the country.”
Clinton again made that case in her speech on Oct. 24, which she delivered at an investment symposium that Goldman hosted. It was barely a week after the resolution of the government shutdown, and investors (and lots of other people, too!) were angry with how the whole situation had played out. So when the event questioner, investor management division co-head Tim O’Neill, asked Clinton how to fight D.C. gridlock, she gave him a three-point answer. This was her second point:
“[R]unning for office in our country takes a lot of money, and candidates have to go out and raise it,” she said. “New York is probably the leading site for contributions for fundraising for candidates on both sides of the aisle, and it’s also our economic center. And there are a lot of people here who should ask some tough questions before handing over campaign contributions to people who were really playing chicken with our whole economy.”
The people “playing chicken,” of course, were the conservative Republicans––including Sen. Ted Cruz––who pushed for a government shutdown in hopes that it would get President Obama to sign legislation overturning the Affordable Care Act. That obviously didn’t happen, as most people correctly predicted when the shutdown started.
In the third speech, discussing how to make the American government work better, Clinton again argued that donors have a responsibility to influence the politicians who take their money.
“And then it comes down to who we vote for and what kind of expectations we set and who we give money to,” she said. “Those who help to fund elections, I think it’s important that business leaders make it clear, why would you give money to somebody who was willing to wreck the full faith and credit of the United States.”
“I think there are steps that citizens have to take,” she added. “It’s not just about how we rearrange the levers of power and the institutions in Washington.”
Later in that speech, she made the same point.
“I like when people say, you know, I may be conservative, but I’m not crazy,” she said. “I’m very reassured.
“Prove it,” said Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman’s CEO and her questioner at the event.
“Yeah,” Clinton responded. “You want them to prove it by saying, you know, we’re going to act differently in our voting and our giving. And it could make a very big difference.”
>>78966
>“And then it comes down to who we vote for and what kind of expectations we set and who we give money to,” she said. “Those who help to fund elections, I think it’s important that business leaders make it clear, why would you give money to somebody who was willing to wreck the full faith and credit of the United States.”
The way it was phrased in the article made it sound like she said something more heinous.
Here is the link btw.
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/11011
Can't find the other speech alluded to though
Also, isn't she rich and still indebted to people?