Hillary Clinton routinely rips Wall Street in her campaign speeches, but she has raked in millions from donors from Wall Street and sundry financial-services firms.
“Money doesn’t buy me,” she declared in the Feb. 4 MSNBC debate with Sen. Bernie Sanders. The “target list” for government intervention is much broader than Wall Street, but must include insurance companies and other financial institutions, she insisted.
Yes Clinton has amassed $44.1 million from those she demeans, barely surpassing her husband Bill, who cleaned up to the tune of $39.7 million, according to the Washington Post.
Astonishingly, two sources have given almost half of the substantial funds Clinton has accrued for her run. George Soros donated $7 million last year to the super PAC Priorities USA Action, and hedge-fund manager S. Donald Sussman gave the same group $2.5 million.
Meanwhile, Clinton disingenuously attacks Wall Street. On January 24 in Des Moines she bellowed, “I believe strongly that we need to make sure that Wall Street never wrecks Main Street again. No bank is too big to fail, and no executive is too powerful to jail.”
On Wednesday night, Clinton declared that “anybody who knows me, who thinks they can influence me, name anything they’ve influenced me on. Just name one thing. I’m out here every day saying I’m going to shut them down, I’m going after them.”
Bernie Sanders has chided Clinton publicly for her ties to Wall Street, tweeting, “Most progressives that I know don’t raise millions of dollars from Wall Street.”
Clinton, undeterred, doubled down on Wednesday, asserting, “I’m really proud of my plan, that it is driving the Republicans and Wall Street crazy. They know that I know how to stop them from ever hurting us again.”
Although Clinton has slammed Pfizer and Johnson Controls for conducting “corporate inversions.” snapping, “On the tax code, they call that an inversion; I call it a perversion. And I’m going to go right after that!” she has collected over $100,000 raised by Blair Effron, a founding partner of Centerview Partners, which participated in the Pfizer and Johnson Controls inversion negotiations.
Clinton has earned over $3.7 million for speeches to banks and other financial-services firms since she stepped down as Secretary of State, including $675,000 from Goldman Sachs for three speeches.
Clinton’s allied super PACs have collected $17.4 million from her financial-sector donors .
Wall Street understands Clinton’s attacks are simply for public consumption; one member of a Wall Street firm told CNBC, “She has raised money from Wall Street, and that’s not going to change. She will continue to raise money on Wall Street, and that’s not going to change. People are big boys and girls and we understand that this is the campaign season — not to suggest that they are happy to hear the rhetorical broadsides from the candidates.”
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