Hillary Clinton’s Goldman Sachs speech transcripts are now a campaign issue.
It all started with a question raised on the rope line at a town hall in Manchester, NH:
“Secretary Clinton, will you release the transcripts of your paid speeches to Goldman Sachs?”
“Hahaha.”
And there it sat, untouched for a couple of weeks, until last night at the debate in Durham, N.H., when MSNBC moderator Chuck Todd read the following question to Secretary Clinton:
"I am concerned with the abuses of Wall Street has taken with the American taxpayers money. Would release the transcripts of your Goldman Sachs speeches? Don't you think the voting public has a right to know what was said?"
And then Chuck expanded on that a bit:
“Are you willing to release the transcripts of all your paid speeches? We do know, through reporting, that there were transcription services for all of those paid speeches. In full disclosure, would you release all of them?”
And there Clinton stood for a second, lifted her hands, shrugged her shoulders and shook her head side to side in the universal gesture of “No” while feebly replying:
“I will look into it. I don’t know the status, but I will certainly look into it,”
Her words left open possibility, but her body language and gesturing was pure nope. And so, with that she quickly moved on to a topic, (any topic!) much more to her liking.
Here’s the full exchange for the historical minded folks:
Now that this question is fully out of the bag, inquiring minds do want to know. Just what exactly did you say to the bankers?
Politico: Asked whether she would be willing to release the transcripts from her paid speeches to Goldman Sachs and other organizations, Hillary Clinton dodged.
CBS News: Hillary Clinton isn't exactly promising to release the transcripts of her paid speeches to firms like Goldman Sachs, after taking heat on the issue from Democratic presidential rival Bernie Sanders.
Marketwatch: If you’re curious about what Hillary Clinton said to companies like Goldman Sachs in paid speeches, you may be about to find out. Emphasis on “may.” Asked at Thursday night’s Democratic debate if she would release those transcripts, the former secretary of state said, “I’ll look into it.”
CNBC: She stumbled again when asked if she would release transcripts of her speeches to Goldman and others, saying only that she would “look into it.” It’s hard to figure out how Clinton has not managed to come up with a better approach.
Asked about releasing the transcripts at a Wall Street Journal breakfast on Friday, Clinton pollster Joel Benenson said:
“I don’t think voters are interested in the transcripts of her speeches. Voters care about “will she take on Wall Street.””
Indeed we do Joel, indeed we do. And since there’s nothing in those speeches that would make the American voters think she would not take on Wall Street on their behalf, we’ll see those transcripts released before the voting starts next Tuesday in New Hampshire, right?
Since leaving the State Department in 2013, Clinton has been paid over $3 million for speaking engagements to banks and other financial services firms. From Goldman Sachs alone, she was paid $675,000 for three speeches.
This is crunch time for her campaign. She claims there is nothing to hide in those speeches, but comes off as obviously not wanting to release the transcripts so voters can decide for themselves. If there is nothing there to hide, why not release them ASAP? Not releasing them, and being all wishy-washy about ‘looking into it’, just plays into the already low numbers she has with voters and the issue of trust. Is she trying to not Mitt Romney herself here? Is the calculation that not releasing them hurts her waayy less than what would happen if voters knew the content of the speeches?
Politics at its finest.
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