At a town hall the other evening on MSNBC, a member of the audience asked former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to release transcripts of all the speeches she has given to Wall Street firms, many of which have donated to her campaign. Here’s her response:
It would appear that Clinton does not want to fork over those transcripts, but said she would “look into” doing so if the other candidates do, too. Fair enough.
So yesterday, Clinton’s challenger for the 2016 Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders, decided he would make the first move and release transcripts of all the speeches he’s given to Wall Street firms. All zero of them. In a statement, the Sanders campaign announced:
“Sen. Sanders accepts Clinton’s challenge. He will release all of the transcripts of all of his Wall Street speeches. That’s easy. The fact is, there weren’t any. Bernie gave no speeches to Wall Street firms.
“So now we hope Secretary Clinton keeps her word and releases the transcripts of her speeches. We hope she agrees that the American people deserve to know what she told Wall Street behind closed doors.”
Looks like the ball is now back in Hillary’s court. So how closely will she “look into” releasing the transcripts of her speeches, for which she was paid $675,000?
The Sanders camp also tweeted out this message and challenge to Clinton late Thursday:
This is what a paid @BernieSanders speech looks like:https://t.co/g0AaUEu4yn
Don't worry. The $500 payout was given to charity.— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) February 19, 2016
Would Secretary Clinton be willing to donate the $675,000 she took home to charity, just as Senator Sanders did? We are still waiting for the Clinton campaign to respond.
Once again, however, we see the obvious difference between the two candidates: One is not beholden to any large corporation or special interest while the other has made millions and accepted millions more in campaign contributions from companies that would be seeking to influence policy if she were to be elected President in November.
This article was originally published by the same author at BipartisanReport.com.