February 24, 2016

At CNN Town Hall, Clinton Again Refuses to Release Goldman Sachs Transcripts

“Why is there one standard for me and not for everybody else?”


During Tuesday’s Democratic presidential candidate town hall at the University of South Carolina School of Law, CNN’s Chris Cuomo pressed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s on her continued refusal to release transcripts of her paid speeches to Goldman Sachs.

“Will you agree to release these transcripts? They have become an issue,” Cuomo asked.

“Sure, if everybody does it, and that includes the Republicans, because we know they have made a lot of speeches,” Clinton said, before pivoting to a defense of her record on Wall Street regulation. 

Cuomo pressed again: “All the more reason to remove this issue. You know not everybody is not going to bring up their transcripts.”

“Why is there one standard for me and not for everybody else, Chris?” Clinton responded, to sustained applause.

A few minutes after the exchange, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign took a shot at Clinton based on her answer:

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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