The guy in the audience said
it was a matter of trust. “Please just release those transcripts so we know
exactly where you stand,” he said.
But Hillary Clinton wasn’t
going there. At the MSNBC town hall with the Democratic presidential candidates
on Thursday evening in Las Vegas, Clinton once again refused to release
transcripts or recordings of the secret speeches she was paid millions
of dollars to make to Wall Street banks.
Clinton literally laughed off
the question when we
first asked her in January.
Several days later, when Chuck Todd asked
her during an MSNBC debate in New Hampshire, she said she would “look
into it.”
Shortly thereafter, however,
Clinton had a new
talking point, which is the one she used again on Thursday night, in
response to a question from a self-identified Bernie Sanders supporter in the
audience — a realtor named Joe
Sacco.
“Why are you hesitant to
release transcripts or audio-video recordings of those meetings — in order to
be transparent with the American people regarding the promises and assurances
that you have made to the big banks?” Sacco asked.
Clinton replied, “I’m happy to
release anything I have when everybody else does the same, because every other
candidate in this race has given speeches to private groups, including Senator
Sanders.”
Sacco followed up by
noting that Clinton had changed her position on marriage equality, and
that she faces trust issues. He repeated his request to release the
transcripts. But again, Clinton declined to answer and pivoted to explaining
her positions on LGBT rights. Watch:
Clinton speaking contracts
that have been made public stipulate that a stenographer is hired to make a
record of her speeches and that she owns the transcripts. As the demand for her
to release the transcripts has increased, Clinton’s team has reportedly began
reviewing the documents to assess the political risk of making
them public.
Records show Bill and Hillary
Clinton made over $125
million from giving paid speeches since 2001. In particular, critics
question why Hillary Clinton received over $675,000 from
Goldman Sachs, an investment bank notorious for using its ties to public
officials to influence policy, over the course of three speeches in 2013.
And while Clinton likened her
paid speeches to similar speeches given by Bernie Sanders, financial records
show Sanders made $1,876 for two
paid speeches and a television appearance last year. Sanders donated
the speech fees to a local charity in Vermont that serves low-income families.
An attendee of one of
Clinton’s Goldman Sachs speeches said she gave such a flattering
speech that she “sounded more like a Goldman Sachs managing
director.” According the Wall Street Journal, Clinton used one
of her speeches to the bank to thank the audience members for what they had
done for the country.
Related:
Contact the author:
No comments:
Post a Comment