Private Clinton speeches leaked in hacking blamed on Russia
ASSOCIATED PRESS / 2016
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton
Washington » Hillary Clinton told bankers behind closed doors that she favored “open trade and open borders” and said Wall Street executives were best-positioned to help reform the U.S. financial sector, according to transcripts of her private, paid speeches leaked Friday.
The leaks were the result of another email hacking intended to influence the presidential election.
Excerpts of the speeches given in the years before her 2016 presidential campaign included some blunt and unguarded remarks to her private audiences, which collectively had paid her at least $26.1 million in speaking fees. Clinton had refused to release transcripts of the speeches, despite repeated calls to do so by her primary opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders.
The excerpts were included in emails exchanged among her political staff, including Campaign Chairman John Podesta, whose email account was hacked. The WikiLeaks organization posted what it said were thousands of Podesta’s emails. It wasn’t immediately clear who had hacked Podesta’s emails, though the breach appeared to cover years of messages, some sent as recently as last month.
Among the emails was a compilation of excerpts from Clinton’s paid speeches in 2013 and 2014. It appeared campaign staff had read all Clinton’s speeches and identified passages that could be potentially problematic for the candidate if they were to become public.
One excerpt put Clinton squarely in the free-trade camp, a position she has retreated on significantly during the 2016 election. In a talk to a Brazilian bank in 2013, she said her “dream” is “a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders” and asked her audience to think of what doubling American trade with Latin America “would mean for everybody in this room.”
Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, has made opposition to trade deals a cornerstone of his campaign.
Podesta posted a series of tweets Friday night, calling the disclosures a Russian hack and raising questions about whether some of the documents could have been altered.
“I’m not happy about being hacked by the Russians in their quest to throw the election to Donald Trump,” Podesta wrote. “Don’t have time to figure out which docs are real and which are faked.”
Podesta’s comments came just hours after U.S. officials publicly accused the Russian government of directing cyberattacks on political organizations and American citizens in an attempt to interfere with U.S. elections.
The joint statement from the office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Homeland Security Department cited disclosures of “alleged hacked emails” on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks as being “consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts.”
The statement didn’t refer by name to the affected political institutions, but federal authorities are investigating cyberattacks on the computer systems of the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement, “It’s not hard to see why she fought so hard to keep her transcripts of speeches to Wall Street banks paying her millions of dollars secret.”
The emails released Friday included exchanges between Podesta and other Clinton insiders, including campaign manager Robby Mook. Most were routine, including drafts of Clinton speeches, suggested talking points for campaign surrogates and suggested tweets to be sent out from Clinton’s account.
The excerpts include quotes from an October 2013 speech at an event sponsored by Goldman Sachs, in which Clinton conceded that presidential candidates need the financial backing of Wall Street to mount a competitive national campaign.
“Running for office in our country takes a lot of money, and candidates have to go out and raise it,” Clinton said. “New York is probably the leading site for contributions for fundraising for candidates on both sides of the aisle, and it’s also our economic center. And there are a lot of people here who should ask some tough questions before handing over campaign contributions to people who were really playing chicken with our whole economy.”
In the same speech, Clinton was also deferential to the New York finance industry, exhorting wealthy donors to use their political clout for patriotic rather than personal benefit. She also spoke of the need to include Wall Street perspectives in financial reform.
“The people that know the industry better than anybody are the people who work in the industry,” Clinton said.
In an April 2013 speech to the National Multifamily Housing Council, Clinton said politicians must balance “both a public and a private position” while making deals. Clinton gave an example from the movie “Lincoln,” and the deal-making that went into passage of the 13th Amendment, a process she compared to sausage-making.
“It is unsavory, and it always has been that way, but we usually end up where we need to be,” Clinton said. “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.”
Clinton’s speeches often touched on technology and privacy. In an April 2014 speech to JPMorgan, she denounced National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden for going abroad, saying, “if he really cared about raising some of these issues and stayed right here in the United States, there’s a lot of whistleblower protections.”
But she told her audience that her time in the public eye left her sympathetic to privacy concerns.
“As somebody who has had my privacy scrutinized and violated for decades, I’m all for privacy, believe me,” she said.
Speaking on international affairs, Clinton’s comments were largely in line with her positions as secretary of state, if sometimes more blunt.
“The Saudis have exported more extreme ideology than any other place on Earth over the course of the last 30 years,” she told the Jewish United Fund at a 2013 dinner.
The speech transcripts were produced under an agreement Clinton routinely imposed on any organization that hired her to speak. The contracts, such as ones crafted by the Harry Walker Agency, required the organizations to hire, at their own expense, a stenographer who would provide the transcripts to Clinton and not keep copies for themselves.
In some cases, the contracts themselves were obtained by news organizations under public records laws because Clinton was being paid to speak by public universities or colleges.
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Associated Press writers Ted Bridis and Stephen Braun contributed to this report.
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Follow Associated Press reporters Michael Biesecker at http://Twitter.com/mbieseck , Chad Day at http://twitter.com/ChadSDay and Jeff Horwitz at http://twitter.com/JeffHorwitz
54 responses to “Private Clinton speeches leaked in hacking blamed on Russia”
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quit making excuses and blaming Russia, it was WikiLeaks owner asange who has all these, nothing to do with Russia, that’s how the liberals like hillary and the press try to blame somebody else, for there stup__dy. everyone knows it was not the Russians, lame excuse, you got caught with your pants down.
Bingo! The Democrats and followers always shifts the blame on others but themselves. And we see The Dinosaur Republican Party dissing it’s own candidate for lewd football locker room talk. You see how Rep.’s won’t stand behind their candidate whereas the Dems’s will stick with their man. It’s self-destruction playing by gentlemen rules while the opposition can count on the Rep.’s to self-destruct because of righteousness. This is locker room talk vs. Hillary’s lies to the public while holding a public office.
Good, honest insight, Pocho.
If we could only believe Hillary’s positive and encouraging comments about free trade and the importance of Wall Street, but we know that this is a woman without a moral or ethical compass.
There is a stark difference between the conducts of both candidates and yet do you see the Democrats calling for Hillary’s neck? To you old Dinosaurs of the Rep. Party: Good Guys finish last!
She has more of a moral/ethical compass than the Donald or any other republican. Republicans have been unethical since they said Deficits don’t matter.
Many other countries in the world are still in the Great Recession and getting deeper into recession, huge unemployment, dysfunctional and slowing economies. Free trade and globalization will increase economic growth and improve all these economies. Donald Trump wants to build economic walls between nations, which will cause more deterioration of the world’s economies
Read the article carefully. Homeland Security head, James Clapper, says the scans and probes of the Democratic Campaign Committee, are sophisticated attacks by state operatives originating in Russia. Wiki leaks were supplied with the hacked info. The fact that these leaks were directed against Democrats, shows that Putin supports Trump, who has praised Putin as a stronger leader than Obama. The Republicans have a history of dirty tricks. Remember Watergate, with Republican operatives breaking into the National Democratic Party. Fox News, owned by Rupert Murdock, has unequivocally supported Trump and Republicans. Remember, Rupert Murdock World News in Britain, found hacking into the British politicians and the royal family. What is disturbing, Rupert Murdock also owns the Wall Street Journal. Roger Ailes of Fox News is also one of Trump’s advisers. Fox News has been known to be also hacking of the internet. There must be a strong link between hacking by the Fox News, Rupert Murdock’s media organizations and all these negative email releases directed against Democrats and Hillary Clinton.
TheDonald says he wrong, he admits it because it’s on recorded tape. Do you see Lying Hillary admit and ask for forgiveness for all the lies she’s spewed on recorded tape? I haven’t and just heard/read her excuses
What lies exactly? Please be specific.
Clinton claimed during her FBI interview that she didn’t understand that emails marked with “C” meant that they were classified. Would you like more?
Yes, especially something not having to do with bureaucratic rules. I thought C meant something else especially with the Donald.
Steve Bannon of Breibart, is a right wing racist ascist white supremacist propsgandist, who has been propagating all the conspiracy theories, is also a Trump adviser. Roy Cohn, who was counsel for Senator Joe McCarthy, during the communist witch hunt decades ago, is also a Trump adviser. Trump has many right wing fascist ideologues in his camp
Trump’s tax returns. TRUMP’S TAX RETURNS. TRUMP’S COVERUP
Vector, Roy Cohn has been dead for thirty years. BTW there were some real witches in that witch hunt you mentioned.
History has vindicated the honorable sen. Joe McCarthy.
Avail yourself of the Venona papers for proof.
Brain Washed. Take your meds.
There is no cure for stupid, but education and a desire to learn is a cure for ignorance
What about Trump lying that he cannot release his tax returns because he is under audit. He can still release his tax returns of previous years. A Big Lie. Does he have financial connections and interests with Putin and the Russian oligarchs, which Eric Trump Jr. said they had. Paul Manafort, Trump’s chief campaign adviser was fired because of his past connections with the previous communist leader of the Ukraine as a consultant, and funneling millions of rubles in campaigns supporting the communist leader. Is Trump hiding off- shore accounts in the Bahamas, to evade taxes, and illegal business dealings? What else is he hiding?
What kind of connections did Cankles have with the Russians to allow them to get 25% of our uranium?
Dirty, rotten, crooked Hilliary. Two faced, four flushing lying politician. She’ll say and do anything. She once said Democrats are mindless and easy to manipulate especially the Blacks, Hispanics and Anglo Educated Women. She also said Obama was feckless. She’s disgusting.
is all that she said on recorded tape?
I doubt there is a politician alive or dead who hasn’t said something behind closed doors that would make many cringe.
Dirty rotten Republicans like lespark, who always never answer a question, but always deflect, distract and deceive on every issue
Trump also said the majority of Americans are idiots, and will believe anything.
He also said he likes stupid people at one of his rallies
I meant Trump liking stupid people
yawn…now back to the bus tapes and kissing magnets!!
You prove the observations made above..
Not surprisingly, dishonest Hillary Clinton conned gullible Democrat voters and is the biggest puppet of Wall Street crony capitalists we’ve ever seen, even more than Obama. Despite almost 8 years in power, Obama has done nothing to hold those responsible for the 2008 economic meltdown accountable and Hillary will be even worse. Suckers!
lol, and your solution would have been? Isn’t the libertarian policy basically to let it rip? Government needs to just get out of the way of individual interests? Tell me what politician with the possible exception of Bernie Sanders and Ralph Nader haven’t been beholden to corporate interests? Hillary is typical in this regard and is far superior to any republican.
Your Libertarian nominee for President, Gary Johnson does’nt know much.In a broadcast interview, he was asked about Allepo. He had no inkling of what it was. Even after it has been in the news for years as a war torn city, being destroyed by the Assad Syrian forces with the help of the Russians, and currently being bombed and besieged by the same. Gary Johnson was also asked which political leader he admired. Again, he was dumbfounded, unable to think of anyone. And you want him leading this country?
What Trump said were crude versions of the following.
“Power, money and fame are aphrodisiacs.”
He also observed
“MS X was a married woman of virtue for whom it did not work”
On the other hand, from the recently released emails, we seem to have Hillary saying something like:
“You have to have your real, private position, and the fake public one that you use to sway the voters”.
“The best people to regulate the financial industry is the industry itself because they know all the fine-tuning that is needed to get it just right”
The second pair of statements seems more dangerous to me than the first.
Does anyone believe that the second set of statements wouldn’t be embraced by republicans?
The Donald is beyond just crude. He advocated assault when he said something about grabbing you know what. What an example he will set. He will make Bill Clinton look like the Pope.
I would be interested if anyone comes out and say yes republicans would be against big corporations.
probably heard about inouye’s success at grabbing you know whats.
But democrats don’t generally set themselves up as the party of virtue.
Trump makes a wonderful role model for girls, boys, Young women, Young men. They can model themselves after him, and be blind believers and followers of fascist right wing ideology
Until you self righteous liberals hold the Clinton’s to their lewd and abusive behavior against women for the past 26 years your opinion and hypocrisy doesn’t matter.
And what lewd and abusive behavior against women is this? Can you be specific?
Wazdat, so great to see you at last week’s “Self-Righteous Liberals” potluck in your rainbow shirt and that great speech you gave about righteousness and how liberalism set you free…look forward to seeing you again at the next one. This time when you bring the cold ginger chicken, no forget the sauce.
Hillary is by far the most despicable, lying, money-power hungry person ever to seek the Presidency. If you notice, { many people do btw ] the narrative of late is to blame Russia for all their misfortunes. Not since the cold war has Russia-USA relations been this strained. We are in Syria because of a natural gas pipeline that was awarded to Iran and not Qatar, { A USA and Saudi Arabia backed plan ] Iran is friends with Russia, Russia controls 2/3 of the Natural Gas flowing into Europe. This is WHY Hillary, Barrack and the other mucky-mucks want Basher Assad eliminated and a pro USA leader installed. It’s about money and control, nothing more. To people that think this is about human rights or ISIS, you have been drinking the kool aid w/o knowing whats in it.
lol, there is that word Most again. Can you name any president who wasn’t a lying, money-power hungry person? Well maybe Jimmy Carter. lol
Tend to agree with you though about it being about money and control. Can’t really get the real story from the typical “liberal” press.
you trumpstahs so silly…now back to the bus tapes and looking for furniture.
Thank you.
What a feeble attempt at deflection. As if any would be Trump supporters can be swayed by the source of these e-mail leaks. Who the f _ _ k cares? Whoever did it did American voters a public service. The Clintons are among the most corrupt and morally deficient politicians in U.S. History. They are a sign of the times. The me generation of politicians. Trump may have a tremendous ego and big fat mouth, but he’s not a lying politician that tells you what you want to hear. At least with Trump, you know what you’re getting. What you see is what you get. The Clintons are a big fraud.
Well you are correct. The Donald is not a lying politician that tells you what you want to hear. He is just a liar who tells you what you want to hear. The Clintons are far from perfect but they are hardly among most corrupt and morally deficient politicians in U.S. History. These are generally republicans. You know like that republican hero who promised to keep the federal budget balanced but left us with a trillion plus deficit.
The thing is with the Donald you don’t know what you are getting as he has been all over the map on so many issues. I sure wouldn’t bet on where he will finally end up.
Pretty funny, only a democrat would be embarrassed after getting caught saying “open trade”.
I don’t know what the big deal is. This country has generally supported free trade on both sides of the isle. Also it takes big bucks to run for business which is why we need public financing of elections. It is not like the Donald would be better on these issues.
Adam Smith said pretty much the same thing and nobody is screaming for his scalp. (Let’s see if anybody even knows the name Adam Smith.)
It would be a bit hard to get his scalp today. Also it would be interesting how many would still support him at least partially today.
Open trade and the unbelievable open borders would benefit a lot of people but not the poor and middle class of the USA. Once again, she’s catering to the wealthy and corporations, not the rank and file because she herself is wealthy.
Tripler D (No, not Diners, Drive-in and Dives) Defense. “Deny, Deflect then Demean.” Anyway, last I heard the Hillary wanted to blame the aliens…:)
I think it is safe to asume that Hillary Clinton has grabbed more women by their p#$$¥ than Trump and Bill Clinton combined.
Russia? Doubt it. Leak was an inside job. Or even worse, Clinton leaked “no harm” documents and blamed Russia. I still want the hard drives from her private email server.
Does the source of the hacking really matter or more important than the message from the secret emails? Her use of the private server likely contributed to the hacking. H. Clinton pretends to be for the working class but as suspected is beholden to the rich and big corporations?
Also if any other federal employee had done anywhere near the lapses in security and judgement she did with her emails, they would have had their clearance yanked and then terminated for not having a clearance. This along with all her other lies makes her unfit. Wish we had a viable third choice for president other than Clinton and Trump.
They’re both unfit for very different reasons. I don’t know that one is more unfit than the other, it’s close. Neither of them will be good for the country in the long run.