Thank goodness for Wikileaks! The hacked emails of John Podesta give us a never-seen inside baseball look at the very dirty world of American politics. Clinton’s campaign manager as just been exposed as a shady dealer with a man who made a fortune selling a type of mortgage that some critics say contributed to the housing collapse:
In the early 1980s, the Sandlers’ World Savings Bank became the first to sell a tricky home loan called the option ARM. And they pushed the mortgage, which offered several ways to back-load your loan and thereby reduce your early payments, with increasing zeal and misleading advertisements over the next two decades. The couple pocketed $2.3 billion when they sold their bank to Wachovia in 2006. But losses on World Savings’ loan portfolio led to the implosion of Wachovia, which was sold under duress late last year to Wells Fargo.
It’s ironic that Clinton has tried to portray herself as someone who’s tough on the financial industry yet she’s connected to people that were responsible for the financial and housing collapse in America. She’s talking out of both sides of her mouth but when is she not?
The man running Hillary Clinton’s campaign is getting paid to advise a foundation run by a key Clinton donor, hacked WikiLeaks emails show.
John Podesta, who draws no salary from the campaign, is making $7,000 per month from the Sandler Foundation, run by Herb Sandler, Politico reported.
The arrangement is not normal practice for political campaigns, though campaign members are not required to disclose their financial relationships.
Sandler insisted his close relationship with Podesta has not helped him or his business politically.
“If they’re responsive, it’s because they regard me as thoughtful, and a major contributor to Democratic cause … Podesta knows that he doesn’t get bulls–t from me. He knows I have no hidden agenda. He knows that my values are similar to his and that we care about people and not the billionaires, even though I ended up by some crazy thing to be one,” he added.
The Sandlers ran World Savings Bank, which was sold to Wachovia in 2006 for $25.5 billion and which was accused of offering adjustable-rate mortgages that contributed to the housing collapse.
Scott Walter, president of Capital Research Center, a conservative nonprofit, said Podesta’s deal with Sandler stood in stark contrast to Clinton’s efforts to portray herself as tough on the financial industry.
“This is another instance where the Clinton campaign has been revealed to have surprising links to some of the most dubious parts of the finance industry,” Walter said.
Read more: Politico
