by Lee Fang
After Hillary Clinton spoke
at a town hall in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Friday, I asked her if she
would release the transcripts of her paid speeches to Goldman Sachs. She
laughed and turned away.
Clinton has recently been on
the defensive about the speaking fees she and her husband have collected. Those
fees total over $125
million since 2001.
Her rival Democratic
presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, has raised concerns in particular over
the $675,000
she made from Goldman Sachs, an investment bank that has regularly used its
influence with government officials to win
favorable
policies.
Watch the video:
During one of her paid
speeches to Goldman Sachs, Clinton reportedly reassured the crowd and told them
that banker-bashing was unproductive and foolish, according to a Politico report
based on accounts offered by several attendees.
On Friday, Clinton was asked
by New Hampshire Public Radio how the “average person should view the hefty
speaking fees?”
“I spoke to a wide array of
groups who wanted to hear what I thought about the world coming off of my time
as secretary of state,” Clinton said, defending her decision to make money from
speaking fees. “I happen to think we need more conversation about what’s going
on in the world.”
“I think groups that want to
talk and ask questions and hear about that are actually trying to educate
themselves because we’re living in a really complicated world.”
Listen here:
When asked by the Des Moines
Register on Thursday if she regretted her decision to make money from speaking
to various interest groups, Clinton compared
herself to President Barack Obama, noting that significant
campaign donations from Wall Street did not stop him from passing the
Dodd-Frank reform law.
But the Obama administration
did in fact go easy on Wall Street by refusing to criminally prosecute the
major financial institutions responsible for the 2008 economic crisis. And
Dodd-Frank, many critics say, does not go far enough in preventing systemic
risk.
What’s more, though Obama
fundraised for his presidential campaigns from Wall Street, he never enriched
himself personally as the Clintons have done.
Obama’s ethics disclosures
show that he made the vast majority
of his income from royalties and advance money for his two books, Dreams From
My Father and The Audacity of Hope.
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