Yesterday WikiLeaks released 2,050 E-mails (out of an upcoming total 50,000) from Hillary For America 2016 campaign Chairman John Podesta, who is also a long-time associate of the Clintons and was President Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff.
Some of you might have missed this because the HFA '16 campaign quickly leaked the lewd video of Trump as a distraction, so the story didn't get as much traction until today. The leaks provide a very intimate look into the campaign during the primaries, including the origin of certain smear tactics and narratives used against Sanders. Excerpts of her paid speeches to Goldman Sachs were also included, proving Sanders correct on a multitude of issues.
Excerpts of Hillary Clinton’s Paid Speeches to Goldman Sachs Finally Leaked
The excerpts are revealed in an email from Tony Carrk, the research director of the Clinton campaign, to John Podesta, the campaign chairman, and other top campaign officials. Carrk, who did not respond to a request for comment, highlighted in the memo the most politically damaging quotes from each paid speech, under headers including "CLINTON ADMITS SHE IS OUT OF TOUCH," "CLINTON SAYS YOU NEED TO HAVE A PRIVATE AND PUBLIC POSITION ON POLICY," and "CLINTON REMARKS ARE PRO KEYSTONE AND PRO TRADE."
Discussing middle class economic anxieties, Clinton told a crowd at a Goldman Sachs-sponsored speech that she is now "kind of far removed because the life I've lived and the economic, you know, fortunes that my husband and I now enjoy, but I haven't forgotten it."
Touching on her view of developing financial regulations, Clinton declared to a crowd of Goldman Sachs bankers that in order to "figure out what works," the "people that know the industry better than anybody are the people who work in the industry."
At the Goldman Sachs Builders and Innovators Summit, Clinton responded to a question from chief executive Lloyd Blankfein, who quipped that you "go to Washington" to "make a small fortune." Clinton agreed with the comment and complained about ethics rules that require officials to divest from certain assets before entering government. "There is such a bias against people who have led successful and/or complicated lives," Clinton said.
Clinton also told a housing trade group in 2013 that on certain issues, she has "a public and a private position." "If everybody's watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least," said Clinton. "So, you need both a public and a private position."
Hillary Clinton, In Paid Speeches To Wall Street, Promoted Commission That Pushed Social Security Cuts
Clinton promised on the campaign trail that she would oppose the 12-nation Trans Pacific Partnership, and that she "will stop any trade deal that kills jobs or holds down wages." But in the email released by Wikileaks, she is shown telling a Brazilian bank that, "My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders." She also is quoted saying: "We have to resist protectionism, other kinds of barriers to market access and to trade and I would like to see this get much more attention and be not just a policy for a year under president X or president Y but a consistent one."
Clinton on the campaign trail declared, "I won't cut Social Security." Yet in the email's excerpts of her Morgan Stanley speech, she lauded a presidential commission that proposed changes that would slash Social Security benefits, according to experts.
The email shows Clinton specifically telling Morgan Stanley that the Simpson-Bowles commission "put forth the right framework" for dealing with fiscal challenges. She also said "the Simpson-Bowles framework and the big elements of it were right."
As the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported in 2011, that commission proposed a plan to "cut benefits for the vast majority of Social Security recipients, weaken the link between a recipient’s benefits and past earnings (which could undermine public support for the program), and, despite the claims of the co-chairs, fail to protect most low-income workers from benefit cuts."
Clinton was criticized during the Democratic primary for her ties to Wall Street -- and she depicted herself as someone who had been tough on the financial industry. But in other speech excerpts from the email, Clinton appeared to laud the financial industry, and tout her work helping enrich it.
The email shows that in a speech to a securities law firm, she said "I represented and worked with so many talented principled people who made their living in finance." The email shows her also saying that while she supports some efforts to raise taxes on the financial executives, "I represented them and did all I could to make sure they continued to prosper." (In a previous interview, Clinton said of the financial industry bailout: "I think the banks of New York and our other financial institutions are probably the biggest winners in this, which is one of the reasons why in the end, despite my serious questions about it, I supported it.")
Another excerpt in the email shows Clinton suggesting that Wall Street executives are best positioned to write government rules that regulate Wall Street.
"There's nothing magic about regulations, too much is bad, too little is bad," she told a Goldman Sachs symposium. "How do you get to the golden key, how do we figure out what works? And the people that know the industry better than anybody are the people who work in the industry."
Harvey Weinstein Urged Clinton Campaign to Silence Sanders’s Black Lives Matter Message
Hacked emails show that movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, a longtime ally of Hillary Clinton and a major fundraiser for her 2016 campaign, urged her campaign team to silence rival Bernie Sanders's message against police shootings of African-Americans. He suggested countering it with "the Sandy Hook issue" — a reference to Sanders's opposition to lawsuits against gun manufacturers.
In an April 10 email sent to Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook, just days before the New York primary, Weinstein invited Mook to meet up. He pointed to a Sanders ad featuring Erica Garner — the daughter of Eric Garner, who was killed by New York City police officers — as well as growing support for Sanders among Latino activist leaders. "I'm probably telling you what you know already, but that needs to be silenced, probably with the Sandy Hook issue," he wrote.
Mook wrote back replying to Weinstein's offer to meet up and discuss strategy: "Are you kidding? Let's do it! I'm here all week. This is all hands on deck–it's must win!Would tomorrow or Tuesday work?"
Finally, the HFA '16 campaign sent the DNC a memo outlining their "Pied Piper" strategy for "elevating" a far-right Republican candidate (Cruz, Carson, & Trump listed) two months before Trump declared his candidacy.
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/784908158426869761