Hillary
Clinton tried to deflect an attack on her political donations from Wall
Street bankers by saying that they stemmed from her connection, as a
U.S. senator from New York, to the downtown Manhattan community
devastated by the Sept. 11, 2001, attack.
“So, I represented New York, and I represented New York on 9/11, when we were attacked,” she said.
“Where
were we attacked? We were attacked in downtown Manhattan, where Wall
Street is,” she continued. “I did spend a whole lot of time and effort
helping them rebuild. That was good for New York. It was good for the
economy, and it was a way to rebuke the terrorists who had attacked our
country.”
Her
statement appeared ripped from the playbook of Rudolph Giuliani, who
was mayor of New York City when the 9/11 attacks took place and became
legendary during his short-lived 2008 Republican presidential primary
campaign for constantly invoking his role in responding to the attacks.
Clinton has received nearly $13 million in campaign dollars from “securities and investment” donors since 1999, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Her ties to Wall Street are not unusual for New York elected officials,
but they have become controversial during campaign 2016, as Sanders, a
self-described Democratic socialist, has inveighed against big banks,
Wall Street and “millionaires and billionaires.”
Immediately
before her comment citing 9/11, Sanders told the CBS News debate
moderator John Dickerson that Clinton’s plan to regulate big banks was
“not enough.” He also pressed her on whether she could receive millions
of dollars from Wall Street and then effectively regulate the banks
whose employees had helped finance her political career.
Clinton,
the frontrunner, seemed to have finally hit her limit with Sanders’
critiques, saying to Dickerson, “Well, John, wait a minute. Wait a
minute, he has basically used his answer to impugn my integrity. Let’s
be frank here.”
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