By Pam Martens  and Russ Martens: October 17, 2016

Robby Mook, Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Manager

According to the above statement from the WikiLeaks Twitter account, a state party has intentionally cut off access to the Internet for Julian Assange, the founder and Editor-in-Chief of WikiLeaks. This happened after the ninth consecutive day of releases of emails from the hacked account of John Podesta, the chair of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign committee. It also comes on the heels of a potentially serious campaign finance problem for the Hillary for America committee, the primary fundraising vehicle for Clinton, according to an email released by WikiLeaks just yesterday. This would be the second time in less than six months that the Clinton campaign’s finances have come under scrutiny.

In April and May of this year, Senator Bernie Sanders’ campaign charged the Clinton campaign with serious violations of campaign finance law, including “looting funds meant for the state parties to skirt fundraising limits on her presidential campaign,” and exploiting “the rules in ways that let her high-dollar donors like Alice Walton of Wal-Mart fame and the actor George Clooney and his super-rich Hollywood friends skirt legal limits on campaign contributions.”

The prior allegations play into the hands of the Trump camp which has consistently portrayed Hillary Clinton as someone who doesn’t care about fellow Americans but only herself and getting rich. The release of an email yesterday by WikiLeaks, together with others over the prior eight days, are making those charges harder to refute.

Robby Mook is Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Manager. According to numerous leaked emails, over many months in 2014 Mook was consulting and coordinating elaborate professional services for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Unfortunately, there were three major problems with this. Hillary Clinton had not told the Federal Election Commission that she was running a campaign; she wasn’t reporting contributions and expenditures; and Robby Mook, during this time, was being paid by Common Good PAC at the rate of approximately $10,000 per month. Common Good PAC is a Virginia Political Action Committee set up by Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, a long time Clinton loyalist. (The PAC had already been the target of negative publicity for offering private dinners with Governor McAuliffe and his wife in exchange for $100,000 donations, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.)

The deterrent for Hillary Clinton to set up the normal exploratory campaign vehicle was that throughout 2014 and into the spring of 2015, both Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton were making millions of dollars giving paid speeches to global banks, corporations and corporate trade associations according to her financial disclosure report. Each of the Clintons received personal fees of typically more than $200,000 per speech. In an email dated November 18, 2014, long-time adviser to Clinton, Huma Abedin, wrote to other members of the Clinton camp: “We ended up locking in ALL her remaining paid speaking offers a few weeks ago. She reviewed them all with you at meeting so you know everything.” Those paid speeches for Clinton stretched into March of 2015, preventing her from declaring her candidacy without the need to dodge embarrassing questions on pay-to-play.

An October 7, 2014 speech that Hillary Clinton delivered on behalf of Deutsche Bank in exchange for a fee of $260,000 was particularly dicey. Just three months prior to this speech, the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations had conducted a hearing into how Deutsche Bank had engaged in a scheme with hedge funds to cheat the Internal Revenue Service out of billions of dollars in taxes. Just six months later, a unit of Deutsche Bank entered a guilty plea with the U.S. Justice Department for wire fraud and engaging in a price-fixing conspiracy.

In the email released by WikiLeaks yesterday, Mook decided to run his predicament by two campaign finance legal experts at the law firm Utrecht, Kleinfeld, Fiori, Partners on December 21, 2014. The two lawyers Mook wrote to, Lyn Utrecht and Eric Kleinfeld, had provided legal counsel to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Mook titled his email: “Some questions – priviledged (sic).” Mook wrote:

“I am currently paid by a Virginia state political PAC which raises and spends unlimited and corporate. I will be re-locating to NYC the first week of January and will be assisting with preparation for a possible campaign. I want to make sure this won’t constitute any sort of in kind from the PAC.

“2. Vendors—payment

“My understanding is that vendors can begin work now but bill a committee when/if HRC decides to form one. Is that correct? If vendors need a deposit, or some sort of payment up front, would that be from HRC personally? Would the campaign then pay the full amount and that deposit be refunded back to her?

“3. Vendors—contracts

“If vendors start working on projects now and require a contract, who is named in the contract? Who is singing (sic) it…”

Mook’s prior leaked emails, however, show that campaign work started far earlier than December 2014. In an email dated March 22, 2014, Mook indicates that research has already apparently been ordered and is coming. Mook writes:

“The research coming should really help on this. I think her experience is part of the story since the research showed people see it as a strength but my guess is the key will be establishing her as a champion for the middle class and someone who can get the economy working for average people–and that will be shaped in contrast to her opponent. But the research will tell.”

On September 13, 2014, using the official email address of Terry McAuliffe, Mook sent an email and a 5-page attachment mapping out an intricate plan for setting up a campaign web site. The planned called for the following:

“Three designers will work on three mock-ups each: a ‘traditional/political’ look, a ‘modern/edgy’ look, and a look of the designer’s choosing.  We expect three rounds of revisions with the candidate participating in each one.”

The same email also indicated that “narrative messaging” was currently being worked on. Mook wrote:

“the biography section will feature videos, photos, and other pieces of content designed to share the candidate’s story. This will be based on the narrative messaging we’re working on now.”

By November 23, 2014, Mook emailed Hillary Clinton, her lawyer Cheryl Mills, and her soon to be campaign chair, John Podesta, three documents (see “attachments” tab) that outlined in great detail “early spending” needs, a “listening tour” and a “staffing timeline.”

The “early spending” memorandum, dated November 19 2014 indicated the following:

“This research program costs $2.1M and represents all polling, focus groups, and analytics that your team would have ideally completed by the time you officially announce you are running (i.e. at the end of your exploratory committee). This body of research should allow you to produce a well developed theory-of-the-case as to how you win the primary and general elections, with an especially detailed path in Iowa and New Hampshire.”

According to the Washington Post, as of December 11, 2014, Hillary Clinton had not set up an exploratory committee, the proper legal avenue for conducting all of these campaign activities. The Post reported:

“Clinton is also debating whether to establish an exploratory committee — a placeholder organization that would allow her to raise money to pay for consultants, office space and other operating expenses. But the move would trigger financial disclosures she can now avoid, and Clinton is getting a lot of advice against forming such a committee, two Democratic strategists said.

“An exploratory committee might also appear too coy for a previous candidate with obvious ambitions for a second try, according to several Democratic advisers, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because Clinton has not yet said she is running.”

None of the above prevented Mook from emailing Hillary Clinton and her advisers on January 29, 2015 that her first campaign hires had been completed. Mook wrote:

“Success! Madame Secretary, Congratulations–you have a very enthusiastic Communications Director and Deputy Communications Director. They are both charged up and ready for action. Kristina is ready to start next week and I’m working with Jen on a transition plan. They were both really positive about working with each other and you. As soon as we have COO, your core team will be in place! More to come…”

Hillary Clinton did not officially declare her candidacy for President of the United States until April 12, 2015. It was done via this youtube video. One day later, Clinton filed the required notification with the Federal Election Commission. Two days after that, Reuters sniffed out that the campaign had been in the works a lot longer than Clinton was acknowledging. The Clinton team was saying that this finely tuned video had been produced by an in-house team while the people in the video said they “were contacted, filmed and interviewed by Hardpin Media, a production company made up of filmmakers who worked on President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.” Hardpin also shows the video as part of its “portfolio” on its web site. According to the first quarterly financial document filed with the FEC by Hillary for America, it paid Hardpin Media $53,646.45 on May 6, 2015 and another $18,588.13 on May 13, 2015.

According to Federal Election law, once an exploratory candidate spends more than $5,000 for campaign purposes, that individual is considered a functioning candidate for office under the law and is required to promptly file a Statement of Candidacy and Statement of Organization and begin filing regular donor and expense reports.

The Clinton campaign is now promoting the idea that when the other side goes low, it goes high. What actually seems to have happened repeatedly in this campaign is that the Clinton team goes covert.

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 14, 2016

Donald Trump, Speaking at a Rally in West Palm Beach, Florida on October 13, 2016

One would have had to have been in a coma for the past eight years not to realize there has been an ongoing Wall Street banking conspiracy in the United States. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) tallied it up and found it amounted to $16 trillion in secret loans from the Federal Reserve – an unfathomable bailout never approved by Congress. On May 20 of last year the U.S. Justice Department documented a vast conspiracy by global banks in the foreign currency markets with the banks admitting to the felony charges. The former heads of Federal regulatory agencies have written books about the conspiracy. Frontline and Sixty Minutes have produced documentaries on it. Banking whistleblowers have organized to fight it in an effort to save the country. A major motion picture, The Big Short, was released this year which put one aspect of the conspiracy into layman’s language and was based on a book by Wall Street veteran, Michael Lewis. Wall Street On Parade has chronicled the ongoing banking conspiracy for the past decade.

But yesterday, after Donald Trump made a reference to a banking conspiracy in his speech in West Palm Beach, Florida, a writer at the New York Times quickly pointed the anti-Semite finger at Trump, quoting Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League and others. The Times wrote:

“The remarks drew criticism from some who said they resembled prejudicial language used by anti-Semites. ‘Whether intentionally or not, Donald Trump is evoking classic anti-Semitic themes that have historically been used against Jews and still reverberate today,’ Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, a group that fights discrimination, said in a statement.”

The full transcript of Trump’s speech was made available by Time Magazine. There is only one reference to the words “bank” or “banking.” Trump said the following:

“The Clinton machine is at the center of this power structure. We’ve seen this first hand in the WikiLeaks documents, in which Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers, her special interest friends and her donors.”

Most Americans believe, for good reason, that global banks, including those on Wall Street, are actively engaged in a concerted wealth transfer system from the 99 percent to the 1 percent. That America now has the greatest wealth and income inequality since the 1920s further buttresses the wealth transfer reality.

After the financial crash in 2008, the Federal Reserve fought for years in court to avoid providing details of the money it funneled to the global banks during the years of the crisis. When the Fed finally lost the court battle, the Government Accountability Office tallied up the secret Fed loans, all of which had been made at super low, below-market interest rates without any public disclosure. The final tally came to $16.1 trillion in cumulative loans. Yes, we said “trillion.” (See chart below from the GAO report.)

While Wall Street banks like Citigroup were receiving secret revolving loans from the Fed at less than 1 percent interest, the bank was driving its customers into foreclosure with exploding adjustable rate mortgage interest and credit card interest rates as high as 15 and 19 percent.

While banks were getting their secret $16 trillion bailout, families in jeopardy of being put out on the street were getting the shaft from their government. During the financial crisis, Neil Barofsky was the Special Inspector General of TARP, one of the key bank bailout programs. His official job was to monitor how the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars were spent. In 2012, Barofsky released his book, Bailout: How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street. According to Barofsky’s book, the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) did not have a goal of keeping struggling families and children in their homes.  It’s real goal, according to U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, was to “foam the runway” for the banks. Barofsky writes:

“For a good chunk of our allotted meeting time, Elizabeth Warren grilled Geithner about HAMP, barraging him with questions about how the program was going to start helping home owners. In defense of the program, Geithner finally blurted out, ‘We estimate that they can handle ten million foreclosures, over time,’ referring to the banks. ‘This program will help foam the runway for them.’

“A lightbulb went on for me.  Elizabeth had been challenging Geithner on how the program was going to help home owners, and he had responded by citing how it would help the banks. Geithner apparently looked at HAMP as an aid to the banks, keeping the full flush of foreclosures from hitting the financial system all at the same time.  Though they could handle up to ‘10 million foreclosures’ over time, any more than that, or if the foreclosures were too concentrated, and the losses that the banks might suffer on their first and second mortgages could push them into insolvency, requiring yet another round of TARP bailouts.  So HAMP would ‘foam the runway’ by stretching out the foreclosures, giving the banks more time to absorb losses while the other parts of the bailouts juiced bank profits that could then fill the capital holes created by housing losses.”

As Wall Street On Parade reported just this past Tuesday, Citigroup was in the midst of receiving the largest financial bailout in U.S. history while one of its executives, Michael Froman, was simultaneously playing a major role in making key personnel decisions for the first Obama administration.

If the Clintons look like they’re part of this conspiracy, it’s from their long-term coziness with the serially charged Citigroup. Bill Clinton was responsible for repealing the Glass-Steagall Act which allowed the creation of “universal” banks like Citigroup, which peddle dangerous investments and derivatives around the globe while also holding insured deposits. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Citigroup was the largest donor to Hillary’s first run for the Senate. (The employees or PACs of the firm make the donations, not the corporation itself.)

As we reported in July of 2014,  after Hillary had made another fact-challenged statement to ABC’s Diane Sawyer that she and Bill Clinton were “dead broke” when they left the White House, Citigroup provided a $1.995 million mortgage which allowed the Clintons to buy their Washington, D.C. residence prior to their leaving the White House. Citigroup has also paid Bill Clinton hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees and committed $5.5 million to the Clinton Global Initiative, a controversial charity run by the Clinton family.

Citigroup’s coziness to the Clintons and the Obama administration has allowed it to keep its executives in high offices in the Federal government. Three former Citigroup executives now sit as U.S. Treasury Secretary (Jack Lew), U.S. Trade Representative (Michael Froman) and Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve, Stanley Fischer.

Trump is far from alone in thinking big Wall Street banks have seized our democracy. Senator Bernie Sanders, a Jew from Brooklyn, fired up an entire nation with a presidential campaign calling for a political revolution against the banks and the establishment. He repeatedly, and correctly, stated that the business model of Wall Street had become fraud. Senator Elizabeth Warren also gets this. On March 13, 2014, when former Citigroup executive Stanley Fischer appeared before the Senate Banking Committee for his confirmation hearing to become Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the following exchange occurred:

Senator Warren: “Now, I’m concerned that the mega banks not only have the capacity to tilt the financial system, but that they also have the capacity to tilt the political system. You know, we’ve learned that as big banks get bigger and bigger their lobbying power and influence in Washington also tend to grow. That means big banks can often delay, water down or even kill important regulations. So, size can have ripple effects everywhere and for that reason I think it’s a mistake to talk about size without considering how it affects the ability of government to enforce meaningful regulation.

“A century ago when Teddy Roosevelt and others worked to break up the giant trusts, this was a big concern – not just the economic impact of size but the political impact that came with size as well. So, Dr. Fischer, you have a great deal of experience as an observer and as a participant in the financial system, is this a point that you’ve thought about and do you think it’s possible for large Wall Street banks to amass too much political power?”

Fischer responded that he wasn’t convinced that banking supermarkets actually achieve any economies of scale.

Senator Warren continued: “Many big banks are well represented in Washington but the connection between Citigroup and Democratic administrations really sticks out. Three of the last four Democratic Treasury Secretaries have Citigroup ties; the fourth was offered but turned down the CEO position at Citigroup. Former Directors of the National Economic Council and the Office of Management and Budget at the White House and our current U.S. Trade Representative also have Citigroup ties. You once served as President of Citigroup International and are now in line to be number two at the Federal Reserve…”

Trump is, indeed, a deeply flawed messenger to be proffering the truth on the Clintons and the banks to the American people. But that doesn’t mean that he’s wrong on those two points. Attempting to tar Trump with the cudgel of anti-Semitism when legions of social justice Jews are writing books and papers about the banking cartel that’s killing America is pretty lame for a New York Times writer. It smacks of a heavy-handed attempt to socialize people to silence on the matter of the greatest bank heist in history.

GAO Data on Secret Emergency Lending Programs During Financial Crisis

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 13, 2016

Donna Brazile Lands In Hot Water Over Leaked Emails to the Clinton Campaign

After the prior Chair of the Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, resigned in disgrace in July after Guccifer 2.0 and WikiLeaks released emails showing that the DNC had actively engaged in derailing the presidential candidacy of Senator Bernie Sanders to tip the field to Hillary Clinton, the woman who replaced Wasserman Schultz as Interim Chair of the DNC, Donna Brazile, is under the gun for putting her finger on the scale for Hillary Clinton.

On March 12, 2016, Brazile was serving in the dual capacity as a Vice Chair of the DNC and a contributor to CNN. The recent WikiLeaks release of emails shows that on that date at 4:39 p.m., Brazile sent an email to Jennifer Palmieri, Communications Director for the Hillary Clinton campaign, titled: “From time to time I get the questions in advance.”

The title clearly conveys that Brazile was referring to questions that would be asked the very next day at the March 13, 2016  CNN Democratic Town Hall at Ohio State University in Columbus. Only Clinton and Sanders were scheduled to appear on stage, as other Democratic challengers had dropped out. CNN’s Jake Tapper and TV One’s Roland Martin were to serve as moderators. Questions were to come from both of the moderators as well as Ohio voters in the audience. The Town Hall was a pivotal event, coming just two days before Democratic primaries in five states: Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio.

Brazile’s email indicated that she was worried that Clinton might be tripped up by a question on the death penalty. Brazile wrote:

“Here’s one that worries me about HRC [Hillary Rodham Clinton].

“DEATH PENALTY

“19 states and the District of Columbia have banned the death penalty. 31 states, including Ohio, still have the death penalty. According to the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, since 1973, 156 people have been on death row and later set free. Since 1976, 1,414 people have been executed in the U.S. That’s 11% of Americans who were sentenced to die, but later exonerated and freed. Should Ohio and the 30 other states join the current list and abolish the death penalty?”

The next evening at the Town Hall, Clinton did indeed receive a question on the death penalty.

Despite the unambiguous violations inherent in the title, text and outcome of Brazile’s email, she is flatly denying that she leaked a question to Clinton. In a prepared statement, Brazile said:

“As it pertains to the CNN Debates, I never had access to questions and would never have shared them with the candidates if I did.”

CNN now appears to be throwing Brazile under the bus. The Wall Street Journal reported last evening that CNN is denying that it leaked the question to Brazile but it believes “a broadcast partner on the town hall may have shared the question.” That now puts TV One’s Roland Martin squarely in the cross hairs.

Another leaked email shows that on January 4, 2016, Brazile had tipped the Clinton campaign to a Twitter event being planned by the Bernie Sanders’ campaign. Brazile forwarded the details she had received from Sarah Ford, Deputy National Press Secretary for Sanders to Clinton adviser Adrienne Elrod. The response from Elrod to Brazile for the good intel was: “Thank you for the heads up on this Donna.”

The DNC now has no choice but to dump Brazile as its Interim Chair if it wants to have a shred of credibility going into the November election. Article 5, Section 4 of the DNC Charter mandates the following: “The Chairperson shall be responsible for ensuring that the national officers and staff of the Democratic National Committee maintain impartiality and evenhandedness during the Democratic Party Presidential nominating process.” Brazile must go for the same reasons Wasserman Schultz had to go: overt bias to tip the scales to benefit Hillary Clinton during the primary process. (Under Wasserman Schultz, the DNC had plotted in emails to portray Sanders as an atheist, which he says he is not, and characterize his campaign as a “mess.”)

Last evening’s Wall Street Journal report also appeared to validate the legitimacy of the leaked emails. The article quoted John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, stating: “If you think you’d like all the contents of all your emails for 10 years dumped into public, think about how that feels. It doesn’t feel great.”

All of this is playing out as corporate media ignores a major Federal lawsuit that has been filed against the DNC and its former Chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, by Sanders’ supporters who have produced a growing mountain of evidence that Sanders was cheated out of a fair primary process. (See related articles below.)

The stakes have also been raised for a major Washington D.C. law firm, Perkins Coie. Its law partner, Marc Elias, continues to turn up in the leaked emails, and not in a good way. According to Perkins Coie’s web site, Elias is “currently general counsel to Hillary for America,” the main fundraising vehicle for Hillary Clinton’s political campaign. Elias is also one of a team of lawyers from Perkins Coie providing legal advice to the DNC. According to the Perkins Coie web site, Elias also provides legal advice to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Democratic Governors Associations. See: Death of Shawn Lucas Brings Attention to DNC Role of Prestigious Law Firm.

Related Articles:

Shawn Lucas Cause of Death Still Unknown as Clinton’s Campaign Lawyer Tries to Move DNC Lawsuit into the Weeds

After Chaotic Weekend for Democrats and Wasserman Schultz, A Class Action Lawsuit Lies Ahead

Department of Homeland Security Has Surprise for Bernie Supporters at DNC Lawsuit Hearing

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 12, 2016 

Senator Elizabeth Warren Endorses Hillary Clinton at the Democratic National Convention, July 25, 2016

There have been many questions and much disappointment among progressives that Senator Elizabeth Warren withheld her endorsement of Senator Bernie Sanders for President when it could have potentially led to his victory in the primaries. After remaining silent on Sanders, Warren then gave an unrestrained endorsement of Hillary Clinton in June as well as in a keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in July. The convention endorsement led to loud chants of “we trusted you” from the audience.

Yesterday, WikiLeaks released more emails that had been hacked from the email account of John Podesta, Chair of the Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign. Podesta was also a former Chief of Staff to Bill Clinton during his presidency, co-chair of the Barack Obama 2008 presidential campaign and a Counselor to Obama during his presidency.

The emails show in great detail just how aggressively and comprehensively the Hillary Clinton team pursued Elizabeth Warren for support, beginning as early as the spring of 2014 – a full year before Sanders had even declared his candidacy.

In one long email thread, long-time Clinton advisor Huma Abedin reveals on November 18, 2014 that a meeting has finally been secured with Senator Warren for December 4, 2014 and indicates the Warren camp has been less than receptive to the meeting. Abedin writes to other Clinton advisors in the email:

“Elizabeth Warren: We confirmed this meeting last week. It is set for December 4th. We were having problems with them because this was supposed to take place in June. They do not want intermediaries discussing the relationship or the potential policy differences as they feel that is happening too much. They want to have a direct conversation about economic policy.”

On the same date, November 18, 2014, and in the same thread, Abedin indicates that whenever Warren says something publicly that is “critical” to Hillary Clinton, members of the Clinton team are to call Warren down on it. Abedin also indicates that there have been ongoing discussions with “Mindy,” (Mindy Myers), Warren’s Chief of Staff at the time and implicates “Mandy” (Mandy Grunwald) as having “been helpful.” Mandy Grunwald was a top strategist for Senator Warren at that time, but according to Abedin, was providing “good intel” to the Clinton team. The leaked emails back that up. Grunwald had been an advisor to Bill and Hillary Clinton for more than two decades but it was not officially announced that Grunwald was joining the Hillary Clinton campaign until February 2015.

Abedin explains the involvement of “Mindy” and “Mandy” in her email:

“There is some background here that Im happy to share. Mandy has been helpful and will provide good intel. As for Mindy, we have frustrated her but yes she will also be very helpful. But I think everytime EW [Elizabeth Warren] says something interpreted as not being effusive enough or critical, she hears from a Neera, Gillibrand, Mandy or we suggest that Dan talk to her policy person. Basically her people are saying say enough already, lets just talk direct. We should assume meeting will leak as we are currently doing it at a hotel in Boston and I am sure they are prepared for that too. We conveyed that we are happy to meet wherever EW wants.”

It’s not a pretty picture that the Clinton camp was attempting to muzzle the free speech of a sitting Senator from Massachusetts, who owes her loyalty solely to her constituents in that state. Using Warren’s own strategist as a source of “good intel” has the same earmarks as co-opting the Democratic National Committee to further the aspirations of Hillary Clinton.

Robby Mook, the man who would become Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, responds to the news of the meeting with Warren as follows in an email:

“I just think it would be good for HRC [Hillary Rodham Clinton] to go into the mtg with one or two objectives. And some potential action items to get EW’s [Elizabeth Warren’s] help on. Has Mindy given any intel on what EW wants/needs/hopes for? Or could Mandy provide some intel? It would just be such a big deal for this meeting to go well and have EW walk out feeling positive and on board. And then there’s the press question–not sure how high the chance of a leak is, but it would be good to have a joint plan with Mindy in the event it gets out to shape coverage. Or to proactively leak if that’s what EW wants. Not a bad thing to put out there that they had a constructive mtg.”

Indeed, the December meeting did leak to the press. It was held at the Washington, D.C. home of the Clintons, not in a hotel, according to a report in the New York Times.

In a January 6, 2015 email from Dan Schwerin, currently Director of Speechwriting for Hillary Clinton, he explained to the Clinton team how his followup meeting with a Warren adviser had unearthed the suspicion that Robert Rubin would once against be seducing the Clintons to see things his way when it came to Wall Street. Schwerin wrote:

“As follow up to HRC’s meeting with Warren, I spent about an hour and twenty minutes this afternoon with Dan Geldon, a longtime advisor to the Senator. He was intently focused on personnel issues, laid out a detailed case against the Bob Rubin school of Democratic policy makers, was very critical of the Obama administration’s choices, and explained at length the opposition to Antonio Weiss. We then carefully went through a list of people they do like, which EW sent over to HRC earlier. We have already been in touch with a number of them and I asked if he would be comfortable introducing me to the others, to which he seemed reasonably amenable. We spent less time on specific policies, because he seemed less interested in that. (Although he did express some flexibility on Glass-Steagall, said too big too fail is the bigger issue, and was open to our ideas on addressing through the tax code assuming it actually works.) He spoke repeatedly about the need to have in place people with ambition and urgency who recognize how much the middle class is hurting and are willing to challenge the financial industry. Starting with her speech at the AFL this week, EW will be pushing back against the President’s message that the economy is getting better and urging us not to get distracted by metrics like GDP and unemployment when so much else remains wrong. Over all, it was a polite and engaged but not exactly warm conversation. They seem wary – and pretty convinced that the Rubin folks have the inside track with us whether we realize it yet or not – but open to engagement and to be proven wrong…”

As Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin helped to advance the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, the depression era legislation that had separated risky investment banking from banks holding insured deposits.  Shortly thereafter, Rubin took a job at Citigroup, the Wall Street bank that pushed for the repeal and its primary beneficiary. Rubin would amass compensation of $126 million from Citigroup over the next decade as the bank set course for a financial train wreck. From 2007 through 2010, Citigroup imploded and received the largest taxpayer bailout in the history of U.S. finance, requiring $45 billion in equity infusions, over $300 billion in asset guarantees, and an unfathomable, initially secret bailout of $2.5 trillion in cumulative, below-market-rate loans from the Federal Reserve.

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 11, 2016

President Obama Walking in Cross Hall at the White House. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza.)

The Presidential election of 2008 was held on November 4, with Barack Obama winning on a promise of delivering “hope” and “change” to a nation in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. At that time, Citigroup was a financial basket-case. It had already received $25 billion from the government’s bailout program known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in October; it was secretly receiving hundreds of billions of dollars more each month in below-market rate, revolving loans from the Federal Reserve — information which the Fed refused to make public despite multiple Freedom of Information Act requests from the media; and Citigroup was just 19 days from more hemorrhaging, requiring an additional government infusion of $20 billion and asset guarantees of more than $300 billion. Citigroup’s stock was at $13.99, a decline of 63 percent in just 12 months and it was on its way to eventually trade as a penny stock, at 99 cents.

Citigroup had been serially charged by its regulators for abusing its customers and targeting the poor and financially uneducated. But key executives at the bank had played major roles in raising funds for the Barack Obama campaign so it was richly rewarded for that.

According to emails released by WikiLeaks yesterday, which came from a hack of the email account of John Podesta, a co-chair of Obama’s 2008 Transition Team,  we learn that despite the obvious fact that Citigroup was both corrupt and derelict in handling its own financial affairs, Barack Obama gave executives of that bank an outsized role in shaping and staffing his first term.

In an email dated Saturday, October 18, 2008, Michael Froman, using his official Citigroup email address of fromanm@citi.com, sent the following email to Obama’s advisors:

“Review Teams

“Attached is the latest version of the Agency Review teams. It is a closely held document, so please treat it with the same sensitivity as ours. If you all could take a quick look at the lists for the agencies in your area, that would be helpful. I think the hope is that, while there are no guarantees, some of the people on these lists might make their way into the agencies ultimately. Our role, therefore, is to check whether there is much overlap between the names here and the names were seeing/generating for sub-cabinet positions in each agency. There doesn’t need to be total overlap, but if there is a total disconnect, it would probably be better to rectify that now vs. later.

“I hate to ask, since I just send you another long spreadsheet to check, but if you could do this tomorrow and get back to Lisa (copied here) and myself, that would be great. Thanks.”

Froman had served in the Clinton administration and moved to Citigroup along with Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin. (Rubin would collect compensation of $126 million during his decade at the bank after helping to deliver the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, legislation that had previously prevented Citigroup from owning an insured bank along with high-risk brokerage and investment banking.) According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Froman was a Managing Director of Citigroup Management Corp. from 1999 to 2009.

Obama appointed Froman to the position of U.S. Trade Representative in 2013. This is how Politico sums up how trade deals are being deliberated under his command:

“If you want to hear the details of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal the Obama administration is hoping to pass, you’ve got to be a member of Congress, and you’ve got to go to classified briefings and leave your staff and cellphone at the door.

“If you’re a member who wants to read the text, you’ve got to go to a room in the basement of the Capitol Visitor Center and be handed it one section at a time, watched over as you read, and forced to hand over any notes you make before leaving.”

According to the WikiLeaks emails released yesterday, Froman began plotting who would serve in the Obama administration long before the election results came in.

In an email to John Podesta dated September 18, 2008, Froman wrote:

“Mark Gittenstein called to say he was in the process of inserting people into all of the work streams and indicated that Ron Klain would be their representative on the Personnel Working Group. I know and like Ron and am happy to work with him. Do let me know how you’d like to handle information flow, role in decisionmaking, etc. Thanks.”

In another email dated October 15, 2008, Froman further shows he is playing a pivotal role in personnel issues. He writes to Podesta and Obama advisor Pete Rouse:

“Please see attached. Pete, need to chat with you today about a time-sensitive Treasury issue. Please call at your convenience. 917-499-3433. John, got some feedback that Blair could well be interested in DNI. Also, spent some more time with Oszag last night and think he could be enticed to the NEC. Also, spent 2 hours (!) with Gene yesterday.”

Another email suggests that Podesta allowed Froman to screen  potential new hires. Podesta wrote to Froman on October 13, 2008 to inquire:

“Subject: Gerald Corrigan

“Rahm raised as possible Treasury Deputy. Said he didn’t know him, but his name had been raised by others. You probably do. Worth considering?”

Froman responded: “Yes, though quite a bit out of date.”

Froman was not the only Citigroup executive to be tapped to shape Obama’s first term. In an email dated just five days after Obama won the 2008 election, Daniel Tarullo, an Obama advisor who now sits as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and functions in the quasi-role as supervisor of the too-big-to-fail bank holding companies like Citigroup, emailed Jack Lew at Citigroup. Lew was Chief Operating Officer of the very division that toppled the bank. Tarullo tells Lew the following:

“Jack – Here’s what I wanted to speak with you about: (1) possibility of meeting in Chicago to brief BO/JRB on budget/stimulus. People have been talking about Wed, Thur, or Fri, but nothing yet firmly set to my knowledge. Assuming it goes forward, how should we present (in 90 minutes for both!) the key issues? (2) your willingness to do some oversight on what Jason is doing on budget preparation, at least until such time as we have an OMB Director designate. Dan”

Robert Rubin was also contacted on November 1, 2008 at his official Citigroup email address by Tarullo. The same email was copied to another Clinton Treasury Secretary, Larry Summers, who was then at a hedge fund, DE Shaw. The email indicates that Tarullo was seeking the opinion of Rubin, Summers and others in Obama’s closely knit circle as to whether Obama should attend a G20 Summit as President Elect. (Clip on the top tab “attachments” to read the full memo.)

Let that sink in for a moment. The Obama team was asking Robert Rubin, who had played a major role in pushing for the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which had in turn allowed Citigroup to become an unraveling banking behemoth that was at that very moment playing an outsized role in cratering the U.S. financial system, to give it advice on how Obama should conduct himself on financial and economic matters.

In her book, Bull by the Horns, Sheila Bair, head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation during the financial crisis, wrote the following:

“By November [2008], the supposedly solvent Citi was back on the ropes, in need of another government handout.  The market didn’t buy the OCC’s and NY Fed’s strategy of making it look as though Citi was as healthy as the other commercial banks.  Citi had not had a profitable quarter since the second quarter of 2007.  Its losses were not attributable to uncontrollable ‘market conditions’; they were attributable to weak management, high levels of leverage, and excessive risk taking.  It had major losses driven by their exposures to a virtual hit list of high-risk lending; subprime mortgages, ‘Alt-A’ mortgages, ‘designer’ credit cards, leveraged loans, and poorly underwritten commercial real estate.  It had loaded up on exotic CDOs and auction-rate securities.  It was taking losses on credit default swaps entered into with weak counterparties, and it had relied on unstable volatile funding – a lot of short-term loans and foreign deposits.  If you wanted to make a definitive list of all the bad practices that had led to the crisis, all you had to do was look at Citi’s financial strategies…What’s more, virtually no meaningful supervisory measures had been taken against the bank by either the OCC or the NY Fed…Instead, the OCC and the NY Fed stood by as that sick bank continued to pay major dividends and pretended that it was healthy.”

But as this Frankenbank tanked, the top advisors to Presidential Candidate Barack Obama were asking three of its executives for advice on personnel and strategy.

Froman is now crafting his secret trade deals for Obama.  Jack Lew, after accepting a $940,000 bonus from insolvent Citigroup, was nominated by Obama to become U.S. Treasury Secretary and head of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (F-SOC) – the entity created under the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation to monitor the financial stability of the United States. Under Lew’s oversight, Citigroup now has more derivatives than 4,701 other U.S. banks combined.

Hillary Clinton has promised a third Obama term. What she failed to mention was that Obama actually delivered the third and fourth terms of the Clinton administration.

Given this reality, it is easy to understand why the Clinton team is anxious to assign nefarious motives to Russia for the WikiLeaks revelations. From our viewpoint, the hacked emails must be viewed as a critical window of light into how American democracy has been hopelessly corrupted under corporate campaign financing.