How to explain away collecting $675,000 for giving three speeches to Goldman Sachs

[kristopher]

How to explain away collecting $675,000 for giving three speeches to Goldman Sachs
By Bob Johnson
Friday Jan 22, 2016 · 2:47 PM EST

As has been well documented, Hillary and Bill Clinton have become wealthy by giving speeches to deep pocket corporate interests over the years, especially to the Wall Street behemoths.

Yesterday, The New York Times reported on how Hillary’s paid speech-making has given Bernie Sanders an effective line of attack on the campaign trail, highlighting her close ties to an industry she claims she will regulate with a heavy hand. All of this in a year when voters are expressing anger at our lopsided economy:

Hillary Clinton’s Paid Speeches to Wall Street Animate Her Opponents
...For a fee of $275,000, she had agreed to appear before the clients of GoldenTree Asset Management, the capstone of a lucrative speechmaking sprint through Wall Street that earned her more than $2 million in less than seven months.

The Clintons have, indeed, made themselves very, very wealthy on the high-end rubber chicken circuit:

Together, Mrs. Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have earned in excess of $125 million in speech income since leaving the White House in 2001, one-fifth of it in the last two years.
…
Goldman Sachs alone paid Mrs. Clinton $675,000 for three speeches in three different states, a fact Mr. Sanders has highlighted repeatedly.

How effective have Sanders observations on Clinton’s speaking fees been on the campaign trail?

In Iowa on Wednesday, Mr. Sanders went even further, seeming to mock her sizable speaking fees as borderline bribes from a powerful industry. “You got to be really, really, really good to get $250,000 for a speech,” he said.
The attacks have become one of Mr. Sanders’s biggest applause lines in Iowa, where the median household earns about $52,229 a year.

Even Clinton allies admit the big numbers she has collected present a problem...

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/1/22/1473688/-How-to-explain-away-collecting-675-000-for-giving-three-speeches-to-Goldman-Sachs

Worth reading to the end,

[Mike Nelson]

1. Not as much as...

...Joe Scarborough or Brian Williams get for speaking, but not bad. Legitimate for Bernie to bring up...

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. Worth reading as you said

How to explain away collecting $675,000 for giving three speeches to Goldman Sachs


You can’t. You simply cannot explain it away. The candidate can’t explain it away and her surrogates certainly can’t explain it away. Clinton is caught in a huge conflict of interest of her own making.

Clinton defends Goldman Sachs speaking fees

…

The former first lady also said President Obama accepted contributions from financial firms during his 2008 White House bid.

“That did not stop him from doing what he was supposed to do,” she said. “He pushed through the Dodd-Frank bill. He signed it into law. He has defended it from constant Republican and special interest assault.”

Obama did not personally profit from the donations made to his campaign. Let me repeat the line from the Times story:

Unlike Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama has never earned speaking fees from Wall Street.

[peacebird]

7. Hillary tries to claim "Obama did it too!" Because he took campaign donations from them BUT

he did not profit personally from them like she has. As you pointed out *that* is a totally different thing!

Slimy really, trying to paint Obama this way. It was with her own greed that led her to take these speaking fees. - especially in the last two years when she knew she was likely running for president. And tone deaf as always, she thought no one would question her motives or integrity.

[Ichingcarpenter]

14. The other thing is Goldman Sachs and hedge fund owners

Don't give a shit about anything except the bottom line.

Which is:

How are we gonna make money off this disaster or that disaster? Or create a disaster we can make money off of for our investors?

That's it ,nothing more nothing less, they have no moral guide to think beyond that because that's not what their company is about. She didn't go into a den of wolves not knowing that and be asked to speak for big money, three times, if she was telling them ''to cut that out''


And anyone who thinks these corporations are gonna do what's best for the planet and humanity are delusional. As the past 15 years have shown.

[uponit7771]

3. That it should've been higher and that Obama didn't give access to others because of their money

... either?!

Jus sayin...

No one who has looked at the Clinton finances thinks 5 - 10 million dollars is going to move them...

That's not reasonable and this line of insinuation falls on deaf ears relative to the facts

[Live and Learn]

4. K&R nt

[senz]

5. She must give a dynamite speech.

Too bad we've never heard it.

[global1]

18. If She Is Asking For My Vote Then I Demand To See Transcripts Of These Speeches....

So that I know she's not telling me one thing and telling them something different.

[Live and Learn]

6. Ethics certainly doesn't seem to apply to Hillary.

At my job, we are forbidden to take so much as a free lunch from a contractor for fear of looking inappropriate. Nor, are we allowed to use company emails or data on our home servers.

Why can't Hillary conform to the same ethical standards other government employees adhere to?

[peacebird]

8. Rules are for the peasants.

[Live and Learn]

9. Damn, I forgot my place again. nt

[peacebird]

11. yup, the rich & powerful are above our rules.....

Let's hope this election turns the tide

[Live and Learn]

13. I sure hope so or things are bound to get really ugly. nt

[Enthusiast]

16. So it would seem.

[roguevalley]

10. there was an article wondering where the bulk of that money, over a hundred or

more million went because they're valued at 45m or so. Where did it go people are asking? She should tell us. I will how her my empty bank account. She should show me hers. Fair question. Who owns you, HRC?

[peacebird]

12. I saw that too. Funny, they "misplaced" 100s more than most of us earn in a lifetime

[Lucky Luciano]

15. Is there poof she even gave a speech? Payments were probably not for a speech anyway. nt

[azurnoir]

17. Hillary must be the ultimate dominatrix of speech giving considering how much they're

to pay her when she says she'll keep them under control and in line