Hillary Clinton sounded naive when talking about Russia and Vladimir Putin in private, paid speeches to Goldman Sachs employees, longtime Clinton adviser Mandy Grunwald confided to campaign staffers.
In speeches to Goldman Sachs employees, Clinton claimed that Russia poses no threat to the United States — a different argument than the one she has made on the campaign trail in 2016.
Discussing a potential fallout if the speeches ever became public, Grunwald noted that Clinton’s campaign could be damaged by “a ton of foreign policy stuff” in the speeches, “including some naive sounding comments about Putin — that could cause a whole separate set of issues — but Jake should review all that.” (RELATED: Obama, Kerry And Clinton Mocked Romney For Warning About Russia)
Grunwald made the comment while emailing with senior Clinton campaign staffers about how best to handle Clinton’s three private speeches to Goldman Sachs, for which she was paid $675,000.
(WikiLeaks)
Despite both Democrats and Republicans calling on her to release the speech transcripts herself, Clinton refused to do so.
The transcripts only became public when they were founded among hacked emails from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s Gmail account that were published by Wikileaks. (RELATED: Clinton Adviser On Paid Goldman Sachs Speeches: ‘It’s Pretty Bad’)
The Clinton campaign has claimed that WikiLeaks is operating in concert with Russian hackers to influence the election. (RELATED: Anti-Bribery Laws ‘REALLY Dicey Territory’ For Hillary)