Three of Hillary Clinton’s paid speeches to Goldman Sachs were released Saturday by WikiLeaks, casting an awkward spotlight on the Democrat’s ties to the biggest players on Wall Street in the final stretch of the White House race, reports AFP from Washington.
Clinton’s campaign did not contest the authenticity of the remarks, which were part of a huge trove of documents hacked from the emails of campaign chairman John Podesta by WikiLeaks. The campaign has blamed the Russian government for the hacks, a view shared by the US government, and accused the anti-secrecy website of seeking to help Clinton’s Republican rival for the presidency Donald Trump.
Among other issues, Clinton is shown in the speeches offering opinions on financial regulations, relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the negative effects of previous WikiLeaks releases on US foreign policy. Clinton’s remarks are not dramatically out of step with her public remarks on the same issues, though they may read as a bit more forthright in style.
In her October 2013 address to Goldman Sachs, she suggested something had to be done to rein in Wall Street abuses “for political reasons.”
“There was also a need to do something because for political reasons, if you were an elected member of Congress and people in your constituency were losing jobs and shutting businesses and everybody in the press is saying it’s all the fault of Wall Street, you can’t sit idly by and do nothing,” Clinton said. Clinton made the paid speeches to the financial giant between the time she left her position as secretary of state and started her White House bid. Her record of delivering speeches for Goldman Sachs was a campaign staple for her Democratic primary rival Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who argued that she could not be relied upon to regulate firms by which she has been paid. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has challenged his rival Hillary Clinton to a drug test before their next debate, suggesting the Democrat was “pumped up” on performance-enhancing drugs in a stunning new twist to the brutal White House race.
The unsubstantiated attack from the Republican nominee came as a new poll out Sunday shows Clinton with a four-point lead over her Republican rival, suggesting that Trump still holds a solid core of voters despite a week of snowballing claims of sexual misconduct that have thrown his presidential campaign into chaos. Trump has trampled all conventions in his treatment of his opponent, vowing if elected to jail her over her email practices as secretary of state—and making “Lock Her Up” a rallying cry for his fired-up supporters.
His campaign has actively fueled right-wing conspiracy theories about Clinton’s health, seizing on her bout of pneumonia last month to suggest she is concealing a major health problem, and is unfit for office. In the latest attack, leveled without proof, Trump suggested she had taken drugs during their last debate, and called for testing ahead of their final duel Wednesday in Las Vegas.