WikiLeaks Clinton Transcripts: Top Excerpts From 80-Page Document

US Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton arrives for a Hillary Victory Fund Event in New York on October 6, 2016. / AFP / TIMOTHY A. CLARY        (Photo credit should read TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images)

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WikiLeaks released its first batch in a series of emails from John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager. The emails included an 80-page document that included parts Clinton’s paid speeches to Wall Street firms that he rcampaign staff thought might be problematic during her campaign. According to NPR, Clinton’s campaign has not confirmed the emails’ authenticity, but the campaign also hasn’t disputed the truthfulness of some of the contents of the emails. Here’s how you can read the 80-page transcript excerpts in an easy-to-view format, along with some of the excerpts that you will find.

Here’s what you need to know.


You Can Read the 80-Page Document in an Online Book Format

Tony Carrk, research director for Clinton’s campaign, sent an email to Clinton’s campaign staff on January 25, 2016, in which he listed flags from Clinton’s paid speeches that could be troublesome for the future campaign.  “There is [sic] a lot of policy positions that we should give an extra scrub with Policy,” he wrote. He listed the main points they should pay attention to in the email, but also included a much-longer attachment of excerpts that could be troubling. You can download the 80-page attachment from WikiLeaks here.

One reader took the time to download the excerpts and convert them into an easily readable document you can flip through online, if you prefer that format. The document in an online book format is published at this link

You can also read some excerpts from the document below. The excerpts include Clinton’s thoughts on politics, Dodd-Frank, Wall Street, fracking, Snowden, the TPP, and marijuana.

 


When Talking About Her Public and Private Policy Positions, Clinton Said Politics Was Like ‘Sausage’ That Can Be Unsavory

In a speech on April 24, 2013 for the National Multi-Housing Council, Clinton said:

You just have to sort of figure out how to … balance the public and the private efforts that are necessary to be successful, politically … That, I think, has probably been true for all of our history, and if you saw the Spielberg movie, Lincoln, and how he was maneuvering and working to get the 13th Amendment passed, and he called one of my favorite predecessors, Secretary Seward, who … ran against Lincoln for president, and he told Seward, I need your help to get this done. … I mean, politics is like sausage being made. It is unsavory, and it always has been that way, but we usually end up where we need to be. But if everybody’s watching … all of the back room discussions and the deals … then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position…”


Dodd-Frank Was Important for Political Reasons, She Said

In a speech to Goldman Sachs AIMS Alternative Investments Symposium in October 2013, she said:

“And with political people, again, I would say the same thing, you know, there was a lot of complaining about Dodd-Frank, but 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, but what you do is really important. And I think the jury is still out on that because it was very difficult to sort of sort through it all.”


Clinton Said A Lot About Wall Street

Clinton had a lot to say about Wall Street during multiple speeches. You can read all the excerpts here. In remarks to Deutsche Bank in October 2014, she said that if there was wrongdoing, people should be held accountable.

“So even if it may not be 100 percent true, if the perception is that somehow the game is rigged, that should be a problem for all of us, and we have to be willing to make that absolutely clear. And if there are issues, if there’s wrongdoing, people have to be held accountable and we have to try to deter future bad behavior, because the public trust is at the core of both a free market economy and a democracy.”

She later suggested in the same speech that Wall Street insiders should fix Wall Street: “Remember what Teddy Roosevelt did. Yes, he took on what he saw as the excesses in the economy, but he also stood against the excesses in politics. He didn’t want to unleash a lot of nationalist, populistic reaction. … Today, there’s more that can and should be done that really has to come from the industry itself, and how we can strengthen our economy, create more jobs at a time where that’s increasingly challenging, to get back to Teddy Roosevelt’s square deal.”

In October 2013, when speaking to the Goldman Sachs AIMS Alternative Investments Symposium, she admitted to needing Wall Street funding in the campaign.

“Running for office in our country takes a lot of money, and candidates have to go out and raise it. 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…”

She repeated the sentiment in a January 6, 2014 speech to General Electric’s Global Leadership Meeting.

“So our system is, in many ways, more difficult, certainly far more expensive and much longer than a parliamentary system, and I really admire the people who subject themselves to it. … Obviously… I would like it not to last as long because I think it’s very distracting from what we should be doing every day in our public business. I would like it not to be so expensive. … In my campaign — I lose track, but I think I raised $250 million or some such enormous amount, and in the last campaign President Obama raised 1.1 billion, and that was before the Super PACs and all of this other money just rushing in, and it’s so ridiculous that we have this kind of free for all with all of this financial interest at stake, but, you know, the Supreme Court said that’s basically what we’re in for. So we’re kind of in the wild west, and, you know, it would be very difficult to run for president without raising a huge amount of money and without having other people supporting you because your opponent will have their supporters. So I think as hard as it was when I ran, I think it’s even harder now.”

 


Clinton: There’s a Bias Against Successful People

In a speech to the Goldman Sachs Builders And Innovators Summit in October 2013, Clinton said:

“But, you know, part of the problem with the political situation, too, is that there is such a bias against people who have led successful and/or complicated lives. You know, the divestment of assets, the stripping of all kinds of positions, the sale of stocks. It just becomes very onerous and unnecessary.”


Clinton Said There Was a Problem with Saudis Shipping Weapons ‘Indiscriminately’

In a speech to the 2014 Jewish United Fund Advance & Major Gifts Dinner in October 2013, Clinton said:

Now, there is another group, which basically argued we do have a national interest in this because refugee flows, jihadist recruitment, giving of large parts of Syria over to uncontrollable groups that threaten Israel, Jordan and others, through conventional means is very much against our interests, and the debate has been can you really influence that? Some of us thought, perhaps, we could, with a more robust, covert action trying to vet, identify, train and arm cadres of rebels that would at least have the firepower to be able to protect themselves against both Assad and the Al-Qaeda-related jihadist groups that have, unfortunately, been attracted to Syria. That’s been complicated by the fact that the Saudis and others are shipping large amounts of weapons—and pretty indiscriminately—not at all targeted toward the people that we think would be the more moderate, least likely, to cause problems in the future, but this is another one of those very tough analytical problems…”


Clinton Talks About Supporting Fracking

In a speech to For Deutsche Bank in April 2013, Clinton said:

“So I am an all-in kind of person, all-of-the-above kind of person when it comes to America’s energy and environmental future. And I would like us to get over the political divide and put our heads together… I mean, fracking was developed at the Department of Energy. I mean, the whole idea of how fracking came to be available in the marketplace is because of research done by our government. And I’ve promoted fracking in other places around the world. Because when you look at the strangle-hold that energy has on so many countries and the decisions that they make, it would be in America’s interest to make even more countries more energy self-sufficient.”

She later said in the same speech:

“…With the new technology known as fracking, we are truly on a path — and it’s not just United States; it’s all of North America — that will be net energy exporters assuming we do it right. And doing it right means not sacrificing the environment in ways that are preventable. There will always be some environmental cost in extracting hydrocarbons, rare earth minerals, you name it from both the earth and the oceans. But we ought to be smart enough, and we ought to be committed enough to ensure that we set the example for the world about how to do it with the minimal amount of environmental damage. I think that’s all within our reach. And I believe that we can afford to do it, and I think we have an obligation to do it. So I want to see us become the number one oil and gas producer while we also pursue a clean-energy agenda at the same time. I don’t think it has to be either or…”


She Talks About Snowden

In a speech at UConn in April 2014, Clinton said:

“..When I would go to China, or I would go to Russia, we would leave all of our electronic equipment on the plane, with the batteries out, because this is a new frontier… It’s not like the only government in the world that is doing anything is the United States. But, the United States compared to a number of our competitors is the only government in the world with any kind of safeguards, any kind of checks and balances… But, I think turning over a lot of that material intentionally or unintentionally, because of the way it can be drained, gave all kinds of information not only to big countries, but to networks and terrorist groups, and the like. So I have a hard time thinking that somebody who is a champion of privacy and liberty has taken refuge in Russia under Putin’s authority. And then he calls into a Putin talk show and says, President Putin, do you spy on people? And President Putin says, well, from one intelligence professional to another, of course not. Oh, thank you so much. I mean, really, I don’t know. I have a hard time following it.”


Clinton Was Aware of Hacking Attempts

In a speech at Nexenta in August 2014, Clinton said:

“I mean, let’s face it, our government is woefully, woefully behind in all of its policies that affect the use of technology. When I got to the State Department, it was still against the rules to let most — or let all Foreign Service Officers have access to a Blackberry… I mean, every time I went to countries like China or Russia, I mean, we couldn’t take our computers, we couldn’t take our personal devices, we couldn’t take anything off the plane because they’re so good, they would penetrate them in a minute, less, a nanosecond.”

In different speeches, she frequently mentioned hacking attempts and lamented that the State Department wasn’t up-with-the-times technologically. This seems to contrast with the FBI investigation, Miami Herald noted, which included her senior aide, Cheryl Mils, telling the FBI that Clinton wasn’t computer savvy and not accustomed to using one.


A Hemispheric Common Market With Open Borders Is Her Dream

In a speech to Banco Itau.doc in May 2013, Clinton said:

“My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders, some time in the future with energy that is as green and sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere.”


Single-Payer Systems Are Better than Primary Care, But Do Impose Waiting Times, She Said

In a speech to ECGR Grand Rapids in June 2013, Clinton said:

“If you look at the single-payer systems, like Scandinavia, Canada, and elsewhere, they can get costs down because, you know, although their care, according to statistics, overall is as good or better on primary care, in particular, they do impose things like waiting times, you know. It takes longer to get like a hip replacement than it might take here.”


Clinton Mentions Supporting TPP

Clinton spoke in positive terms about TPP in May 2013, during remarks at Sanford Bernstein:

“And some of you are experts, which I certainly am not, on the Japanese economy, if the prime minister and his government will now willing to open up the internal market and incentivizing these changes and taking on the tough political hurdles, I think you could see sustainable growth. At what level, I can’t predict, but it was a good sign when Prime Minister Abe said that Japan would negotiate on the Transpacific partnership, that is something that we tried to get prior prime ministers to commit to, and they were under pressure from the car industry and from the rice farmers and others, but he did say Japan wants to be part of the TPP.  If they follow through on that, that will be a good sign.”


She Mentions Being Against Marijuana

In remarks at Xerox in March 2014, Clinton was told that “long means thumbs up” and “short means thumbs down.” She was then asked the legalization of pot. Clinton responded: “Short in all senses of the word.”

Did you see anything else in the 80-page document that was intriguing? Let us and other readers know in the comments below.