Wall Street Has Given Hillary Clinton $29 Million. What Does She Owe Them?
Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton has been bobbing and weaving for months fending off complaints from liberals in her party that she and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have been too cozy with Wall Street.
One of the more heated exchanges between Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in last Saturday night’s Democratic debate in Iowa was over those long-standing ties and the huge amounts of campaign contributions that Clinton and her husband Bill have raked in over the years.
Related: The Clintons’ Incredible $3 Billion Money Machine
Despite her protests that she can stand up to Wall Street and has sponsored legislation anathema to the interests of New York bankers, financial investors and hedge fund managers, Sanders, the self-described Democratic socialist who blames Wall Street for most of the country’s economic ills, wasn’t buying it.
“I have never heard a candidate – never – who’s received huge amounts of money from oil, from Wall Street, from the military industrial complex who doesn’t say, ‘Oh, these contributions will not influence me. I’m going to be independent.”
A testy Clinton complained that Sanders, “Impugned my integrity.” Since announcing for president in April, Clinton has vowed to rein in Wall Street. Among other things, she has proposed higher taxes on high-frequency traders and elimination of special tax breaks for hedge fund managers. She recently advocated tougher enforcement of criminal statutes that govern the finance industry so that top executives cannot escape responsibility for their companies’ wrongdoings.
Despite her protests, the issue of her close ties to Wall Street is not likely to go away anytime soon. For one thing, Sanders and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, another Democratic candidate, won’t let it. Earlier this week, Sanders’ campaign accused Clinton of trying to divert attention from her Wall Street ties by claiming that Sanders would raise taxes on the middle income Americans to help pay for his proposed single-payer national health care plan.
Related: Bernie Sanders Does an About-Face on Clinton’s Emails
More importantly, however is that The Washington Post just handed Sanders and other critics powerful evidence that the Clinton family is in fact in enormous political debt to Wall Street.
A new Washington Post database documenting an astounding $3 billion in contributions and fees the Clinton amassed over the past 40 years for their political campaigns, speeches and the charitable work of the global Clinton Foundation shows that Wall Street has been one of the Clintons’ biggest political benefactors.
The relationship dates back to 1991, when a then young governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas impressed a group of high-powered New York bankers, including then Goldman Sachs co-chairman Robert Rubin, who later became Treasury Secretary during Clinton’s presidency.
Since 2000, Hillary Clinton has raised $29.2 million from PACs and employees of major banks, hedge funds and securities firms for her Senate and presidential campaigns while her husband raised $39.7 million from Wall Street sources throughout his political career – or a total of $68.9 million.
The financial sector stands atop the list of industries and sectors that have supported Hillary Clinton in the past, according to the Post analysis. Other sectors that have been important to her political career include the entertainment industry, health care and real estate.
Related: Sanders, O’Malley Put Hillary Clinton on the Hot Seat in Democratic Debate
Here is the Post’s breakdown of the millions of dollars that the financial sector has contributed to the Clintons since 1992.
1992 Bill Clinton presidential campaign -- $11.17 million
1996 Bill Clinton presidential campaign -- $28.37 million
2000 Hillary Clinton Senate campaign -- $2.13 million
2006 Hillary Clinton Senate reelection -- $6.02 million
2008 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign -- $14.61 million
2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign through Sept. 30 -- $6.42 million.
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