I and most of us, no doubt, who didn’t remember back that far and didn’t bother to check Clinton’s barb on Sunday, are yet again not surprised to hear that she lied, or at the minimum distorted in a despicably cynical way, about her claim that Sanders supported deregulation of Wall Street in 2000.
Instead, as Robert Scheer (who makes a living knowing these details) points out just how reprehensible Hillary’s lie by omission was:
Scheer:
The Clintons have no shame, that much you can count on. That stupefying arrogance was on full display in the most recent presidential campaign debate when Hillary Clinton countered Bernie Sanders' charge that she was compromised by her close ties to Goldman Sachs and other rapacious Wall Street interests with the retort:
Hillary said on Sunday:
Sen. Sanders, you're the only one on this stage that voted to deregulate the financial markets in 2000, ... to make the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission no longer able to regulate swaps and derivatives, which were one of the main causes of the collapse in '08.
Scheer:
Hillary knows that the disastrous legislation, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (CFMA), had nothing to do with Sanders and everything to do with then-President Bill Clinton, who devoted his presidency to sucking up to Wall Street. Clinton signed this bill into law as a lame-duck president, ensuring his wife would have massive Wall Street contributions for her Senate run.
It was snuck in on an Omnibus bill, with the collusion of BILL Clinton and his Republican allies in Congress, and thus Sanders and every other Congressperson but a few were forced to vote for it. And Hillary then ended up having Wall Street support for her Senate run gift-wrapped by Bill’s lame duck neoliberal corporatist gambit.
So for her to bring this up as though Sanders was the neoliberal, when it was a Clinton Wall Street sweetheart deal, is just the epitome of prevarication and arrogance. Hard to say I’m more disgusted that I was going into that debate, but for some reason this one just made me throw up in my mouth a little at how brazen she is.
Sanders and the American public deserve an honest policy debate from Clinton; not a bunch of underhanded lies and distortions. Sad to say, we’re likely only seeing the beginning.
UPDATE:
Clinton very clearly supported this giveaway to Wall Street, since one of its main architects was Gary Gensler, the former Goldman Sachs partner recruited by Clinton to be undersecretary of the treasury.
As JVolvo notes:
“Here’s more backstory: the original version of the bill passed the House 377-4 and sat on the shelf for weeks. Dear Sen Phil Deregulator Gramm and pals worked with Clinton White House, rewrote the language so as to defang regulation, added the Enron Loophole (for Sen Gramm’s wife Wendy) THEN tacked it onto the 11,000 omnibus, must-pass Fed spending bill that Pres Clinton signed in the post-11-2000-election lame duck session.
Thanks President Clinton and Sen Gramm…
But the version Sanders initially voted for was more benign than the final, Gramm-authored version, and it didn't draw any of the protests that the 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagall did. In October 2000, the bill passed the House by a vote of 377 to 4 (51 members didn't vote), and then sat on the shelf for weeks.
But in December, Gramm -- after coordinating with top Clinton administration officials -- added much harder-edged deregulatory language to the bill, then attached the entire package to a must-pass 11,000-page bill funding the entire federal government. After Gramm's workshopping, the legislation included new language saying the federal government "shall not exercise regulatory authority with respect to, a covered swap agreement offered, entered into, or provided by a bank." That ended all government oversight of derivatives purchased or traded by banks. He also created the so-called "Enron Loophole," which barred federal oversight of energy trading on electronic platforms.
This was an era in which voting against funding the federal government was considered a major governance faux pas. The bill sailed through both chambers of Congress, with few lawmakers even aware of the major new deregulatory changes.
And MarktheShark adds:
When Sanders voted for the House version of the CFMA in October 2000, the bill was not yet a total debacle for Wall Street accountability advocates. The legislative text Sanders supported was clearly designed to curtail regulatory oversight. The GOP-authored bill was crafted as a response to a proposal from ex-Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Brooksley Born to ramp up oversight of derivatives. But the version Sanders initially voted for was more benign than the final, Gramm-authored version, and it didn't draw any of the protests that the 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagall did. In October 2000, the bill passed the House by a vote of 377 to 4 (51 members didn't vote), and then sat on the shelf for weeks.