Elections

Hillary’s Wall Street Speeches Revealed In Wikileaks Hack

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Chuck Ross Investigative Reporter
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Wikileaks released emails from the account of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta on Friday which contain damning highlights from the Democratic presidential candidate’s Wall Street speeches.

Clinton’s remarks from her highly-paid speeches are contained in a research file maintained by Clinton campaign research director Tony Carrk. (RELATED: Wikileaks Publishes 2,000 Emails From Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta)

The campaign operative made headlines of Clinton’s most embarrassing quips. Highlights include:

*CLINTON ADMITS SHE IS OUT OF TOUCH*
*CLINTON SAYS YOU NEED TO HAVE A PRIVATE AND PUBLIC POSITION ON POLICY*
*CLINTON ADMITS NEEDING WALL STREET FUNDING*
*CLINTON TOUTS HER RELATIONSHIP TO WALL STREET AS A SENATOR*
*CLINTON TALKS ABOUT THE CHALLENGES RUNNING FOR OFFICE*
*CLINTON REMARKS ARE PRO KEYSTONE AND PRO TRADE*

The release comes after months and months of pressure from supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on Clinton to release transcripts of her speeches, most of which brought her a $225,000 paycheck.

Back in January, Clinton responded to those demands, saying that she would “look into” producing the documents. However, she stonewalled through the rest of the primaries. She has recently resisted requests for transcripts of the speeches by pointing out that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has not released her tax returns.

Some of Clinton’s comments in the speeches show why she may have withheld the transcripts. And Carrk’s email to his campaign colleagues show that he knew that the speeches would raise red flags.

“Team, Attached are the flags from HRC’s paid speeches,” Carrk wrote to a list of Clinton campaign officials, including Podesta, Clinton campaign press secretary Brian Fallon and communications director Jennifer Palmieri. “I put some highlights below. There is a lot of policy positions that we should give an extra scrub with Policy.”

In a Feb. 4, 2014 speech hosted by investment bank Goldman Sachs and private equity firm BlackRock, Clinton recalled her middle-class upbringing but said that she is now “kind of far removed” from that lifestyle.

“And now, obviously, I’m 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,” she said.

At an April 24, 2013 speech hosted by the National Multi-Housing Council, Clinton said that politics was “unsavory” and that “back room” deals were sometimes necessary to make the process work.

“I mean, politics is like sausage being made,” she said. “It is unsavory, and it always has been that way, but we usually end up where we need to be. But 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. So, you need both a public and a private position.”

During a question-and-answer session with Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein at the Goldman Sachs Builders And Innovators Summit on Oct. 29, 2013, Clinton asserted that the requirements placed on politicians to divest from certain assets was “very onerous and unnecessary.”

She also commented that the political climate created a bias against “successful” people who have led “complicated lives.”

“Part of the problem with the political situation, too, is that there is such a bias against people who have led successful and/or complicated lives,” she told Blankfein. “You know, the divestment of assets, the stripping of all kinds of positions, the sale of stocks. It just becomes very onerous and unnecessary.”

Clinton also said that she longed for a “hemispheric common market” in which “open trade and open borders” was a reality.

“My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders, some time in the future with energy that is as green and sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere,” she said in a May 16, 2013 speech at Chile’s Banco Itau.

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