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Hillary Clinton wants voters to know she is no friend of Wall Street. But Wall Street has frequently been a friend to her.

In the 18 months prior to announcing her second campaign for president, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination addressed private equity investors in California, delivered remarks to bankers in Hilton Head, South Carolina and spoke to brokers at the Ritz-Carlton in Naples, Florida.

Her efforts capped a nearly 15-year period in which Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, made at least $35 million by giving 164 speeches to financial services, real estate and insurance companies after leaving the White House in 2001, according to an Associated Press analysis of public disclosure forms and records released by her campaign.

The long and lucrative relationship between the Clinton family and the nation's finance industry has emerged as a key issue in her Democratic primary race. Her rivals, including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, accuse her of being too cozy with Wall Street and the industry she once represented as a senator from New York.

Her backers at financial firms say they have little expectation her family's personal profits will influence her policymaking, noting their own opposition to her plan to raise taxes on the hedge fund and private equity profits known as carried interest.

"She and Bill were both government servants all of their life and there was a set period of time when they could make money," venture capitalist Alan Patricof, a longtime Clinton fundraiser, said of the Clintons' paid speechmaking. "She had to maximize her earning potential."

The Clinton campaign also points to her record, saying it shows a history of working to regulate the industry. Negative ads run by a group called Future 45, a super PAC backed by six-figure checks from hedge fund managers, demonstrate that Wall Street expects her to follow through on her proposals, aides said.

"Any honest look at Hillary Clinton's record shows she spoke out early and often against Wall Street's excesses in the run-up to the financial crisis," said campaign spokesman Brian Fallon. "It's clear they believe she will take action as president to crack down on the industry's abuses ================================================

The bulk of the Clintons' paid speeches to the financial industry came after the 2008 economic crash. From 2009 to 2014, the couple made $26 million from 109 appearances sponsored by banks, insurance companies, hedge funds, private equity firms and real estate businesses, and at those industries' conferences and before their trade organizations.

With Hillary Clinton serving as secretary of state for most of that period, her husband brought in the bulk of the funds, earning nearly $17 million. That included $250,000 Bill Clinton made for mingling with investment managers in New York on May 12 â€” thirty days after Hillary Clinton released a video announcing her second bid for the White House.

What the Clintons said in their speeches is hard to find. Although many of the remarks were given to large groups, any broadcast or transcription was typically barred â€” along with the press. Still, some details have trickled out. Sometimes the subject was foreign affairs. Sometimes it was more personal.

"It's so important for women like us to get out of our comfort zones and be willing to fail. I've done that, too, on a very large stage," she said, according to a report in the real estate blog The Real Deal, which attended her October 2014 speech to the annual convention of the Commercial Real Estate Women Network in Miami Beach.

News reports say the notorious tax-exempt Clinton Foundation charity setup a money-making private equity fund in the corrupt country of Columbia. Why Columbia?

WIKI REFERENCE---In 2000, the Bill Clinton administration committed $1.3 billion in US foreign aid to the corrupt country of Columbia...... and up to five hundred military personnel to train local forces.

An additional three hundred civilian personnel were allowed to assist in the eradication of coca. This aid was an addition to $330 million of previously approved US aid to Colombia. $818 million was earmarked for 2000, with $256 million for 2001.

The Clinton-era appropriations for his Columbia Plan made Colombia the third largest recipient of foreign aid from the United States at the time.

--SNIP--

As of 2008, the U.S. has provided nearly $1.3 billion to Colombia through Clinton Plan Colombia nonmilitary aid programs:

<><> Alternative Development (2000-2008 cost: $500 million)

<><> Internally Displaced Persons (2000-2008 cost: $247 million)

<><> Demobilization and Reintegration (2000-2008 cost: $44 million)

<><> Democracy and Human Rights (2000-2008 cost: $158 million)

<><> Promote the Rule of Law (2000-2008 cost: $238 million)

LONG READ--REST AT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Colombia

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The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) is a project of the Center for Public Integrity, focused on issues such as "cross-border crime, corruption, and the accountability of power".

In 2013, the consortium had 160 member journalists from 60 countries. The ICIJ brings together teams of international journalists for different investigations (over 80 for Offshore leaks). It organizes the bi-annual Daniel Pearl Awards for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting.

The ICIJ's director since 2011 is Gerard Ryle; other staff members include Michael Hudson, while the Advisory Committee in 2013 includes Bill Kovach, Phillip Knightley, Gwen Lister, and Goenawan Mohamad.

The ICIJ might examine ALL of Clinton-era foreign aide disbursements---and Hillary's foreign assistance....to determine if the Clintons have offshore accounts in those countries....or if so-called charities have been setup by the notorious Clinton Foundation to money-launder by siphoning off kickbacks. 11/27 MY POST---The Clinton Colombia connection: a secret investment fund (primed w/ billions in foreign aid) Hillary Clinton is upping her anti-Wall Street rhetoric, amid reports that the Clinton Foundation is running a private-equity company down in Colombia.The same private-equity field dissed by 2008 Obama in hundreds of millions of dollars of negative ads against Mitt Romney b/c Romney earned his fortune w/ a PEF.

The Clinton Foundations Bogota-based Fondo Acceso, started in 2010 by Bill Clinton, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim and mining millionaire Frank Giustra....$20 million seed funding supposedly came from the foundationÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s Clinton-Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative and Carlos Slim's the SLIM Foundation, the Washington Free Beacon reports. In an ominous sign, Fondo Acceso took down its Web site once the Beacon broke the story. Plus the venture wasnt even registered as a private-equity fund in Colombia, thereby skirting government oversight.

A good move for an investment firm linked to the US secretary of state. The National Legal and Policy Center, notes, At the minimum, the Clinton Foundation should disclose every company that received investment funds, because the public is entitled to know whether those companies benefited from any State Department foreign-aid rograms. Not to mention the ethical murk of having two charities co-own an investment fund in a developing nation. Especially when one of those charities is the family nonprofit of a presidential candidate who has raised tens of millions from the financial sector shes promising to reform.

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INCONVENIENT FACTOIDS

<><> 181 Clinton Foundation donors lobbied Hillary's State Department for political favors.

<><> The Clinton Family Foundation and the Clinton Library received millions from Muslim Qatar, as well as donations from FIFA, the soccer organization now enmeshed in a bribery and corruption.

<><> The Clintons have a secret 'pass-through' company, WJC, LLC; Hillary's State Department approved $165 billion worth of commercial arms sales to 20 nations whose governments have given money to the Clinton Foundation.

<><> The WSJ listed at least 60 companies that lobbied Hillary's State Department while she was there, companies donated a total of more than $26 million to the Clinton Foundation, while Hillary used the power of the US govt to perform political "favors" for the donors.

<><> FOREIGN Donations to the Clinton Foundation jumped 73% from 2013-14, when Hillary Clinton was preparing to run for the presidency. Foreign donations for presidents are illegal, but ex-pres Bill Clinton had no problem receiving donations from Communist China while he was president.

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There are plenty of shady dealings between the Clinton Foundation and its foreign donors that relied on Hillary Clinton for favors. How shady? The Charity Navigator, a nonpartisan organization that provides information on charities, placed the Clinton Foundation on its Watchlist, due to its "atypical business model."

Is the Clinton Foundation a fraud? They acknowledge over $2 BILLION dollars income......but IMHO that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Maybe that's why the Clintons have such a hard time remembering to accurately file their TAXES, because they have a lot to hide.

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Hillary Clinton with Frank Giustra

Hillary Clinton with Frank Giustra (far left), Louise Arbour and U.S. Ambassador Thomas Pickering (right). CREDIT: Flickr

Bills Clinton and Giustra made a big show of The Clinton Foundation's do-goodism in earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

Bill and Canadian mining tycoon Frank Giustra in Haiti June 2014,
to launch the "Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership" Acceso Peanut
Enterprise Corp. (Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images)

Hillary Clinton wants voters to know she is no friend of Wall Street. But Wall Street has frequently been a friend to her.

Contrary to what the MSM would have everyone believe, political contributions from "Wall Street" and the financial industry have been overwhelmingly DEMOCRAT for every election in the last two decades. In fact, the idea that Republicans are the party of "big business" hasn't been the case since the Clinton years, and maybe even before that. The underlying general reason may be is that big government regulation of industry helps the fat cats at the expense of smaller competitors.

Her efforts capped a nearly 15-year period in which Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, made at least $35 million by giving 164 speeches to financial services, real estate and insurance companies after leaving the White House in 2001, according to an Associated Press analysis of public disclosure forms and records released by her campaign.
The long and lucrative relationship between the Clinton family and the nation's finance industry has emerged as a key issue in her Democratic primary race. Her rivals, including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, accuse her of being too cozy with Wall Street ...

Maybe since it's Bernie 'saying it' the press will get their heads out of the sand and cover this story in a real way... One can dream, right?