WikiLeaks releases transcripts of Clinton Goldman Sachs speeches

Story highlights

• The remarks were hacked as part of an extensive breach of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's email account
• Clinton's paid speeches were a rallying cry for Bernie Sanders supporters during the Democratic primary

White Plains, New York (CNN)WikiLeaks released Saturday what appear to be transcripts of Hillary Clinton's three paid speeches to financial heavyweight Goldman Sachs.

The remarks, which were hacked as part of an extensive breach of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's email account, show Clinton commenting on Wall Street's role in financial regulations, relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the damage done to US foreign policy by past WikiLeaks releases.

The Clinton campaign declined to confirm the authenticity of any of the transcripts and CNN cannot independently confirm their authenticity. But the campaign has not challenged any emails in other WikiLeaks releases and this is the second time transcripts from Clinton's paid speeches have been made public by the group.

Clinton's campaign compared the WikiLeaks hack to Watergate, the scandal that lead to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

"There is no getting around it: Donald Trump is cheering on a Russian attempt to influence our election through a crime reminiscent of Watergate but on a more massive scale," Glen Caplin, a Clinton campaign spokesman, said Saturday. "We're witnessing another effort to steal private campaign documents in order to influence an election."

The US government has said WikiLeaks is working with Russian operatives.

'For political reasons'

Clinton made three paid appearances for Goldman Sachs between the time she left the State Department in 2013 and when she announced her presidential campaign in early 2015.

Clinton's paid speeches to Goldman Sachs and other financial firms were a rallying cry for Bernie Sanders supporters during the Democratic primary.

Trump has looked to seize on the WikiLeaks releases, regularly touting them at his events to the point that Democrats have argued he is condoning hacking by Russian operatives. Trump said Saturday that he almost delayed a rally in Maine because of the emails' release.

Clinton's campaign was obviously worried about the speeches, too, the hacked emails show. Staffers asked Tony Carrk, the campaign's head of research, to look into the content and present top campaign aides with comments that could prove politically troubling.

In total, Carrk highlighted five comments from the paid speeches. The comments mostly pertained to regulating the financial industry.

In an October 2013 speech to the financial firm, Clinton implied that action was necessary to curb Wall Street street abuses "for political reasons."

"There was also a need to do something because for political reasons, if you were an elected member of Congress and people in your constituency were losing jobs and shutting businesses and everybody in the press is saying it's all the fault of Wall Street, you can't sit idly by and do nothing," Clinton said.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was passed in 2010 in response to the great recession and looked to impose tighter regulations on financial institutions. While business leaders, especially those leading the financial firms, were generally against the measure, the decision was politically popular with Democrats who blamed Wall Street for the recession.

In the same speech, Clinton said that "more thought has to be given to the process and transactions and regulations so that we don't kill or maim what works, but we concentrate on the most effective way of moving forward with the brainpower and the financial power that exists here."

Clinton on foreign policy

In a June 2013 speech, just months after she left the State Department, Clinton said she wished the United States could intervene in Syria "covertly as is possible for Americans to intervene."

"We used to be much better at this than we are now. Now, you know, everybody can't help themselves," she said. "They have to go out and tell their friendly reporters and somebody else: Look what we're doing and I want credit for it, and all the rest of it."

In a bit of irony, the WikiLeaks release also brought to light Clinton's reaction to a past release from the group that exposed Democratic cables that cast foreign leaders in a negative light.

Clinton joked that she embarked on the "Clinton Apology Tour."

"It was painful," Clinton said. "Leaders who shall remain nameless, who were characterized as vain, egotistical, power hungry, corrupt. And we knew they were. This was not fiction. And I had to go and say, you know, our ambassadors, they get carried away, they want to all be literary people. They go off on tangents. What can I say. I had grown men cry. I mean, literally."

On Russian relations, Clinton said she wishes she could "continue to build a more positive relationship with Russia."

Clinton added that Putin has rejected some of their attempts to work together "out of hand."

Comments largely in line with public positions

Clinton collected at least $1.8 million for at least eight speeches to big banks, according to figures released by Clinton's campaign and tax documents she released earlier this year.

And while the transcripts show a more blunt, less reserved Clinton, much of what the former secretary of state said to Goldman Sachs and other groups appear generally in line with some of what she has said publicly.

In another 2013 speech, Clinton dismissed the idea that President Barack Obama would have been able to accomplish more if he had schmoozed with Republicans in Congress more often.

"I know that he spent a lot of time early on in the first term with the Republicans in trying, as you recall ... it turned out that the Republicans' side, particularly in the House, couldn't deliver," she said.

Clinton's campaign has so far declined to comment on specifics in the releases, in part, because they don't want to validate any of the hacks. Instead, Clinton's top aides have dismissed the releases as partisan efforts by the Russian government to elect Trump president.

But the releases, which have come daily for the last week, are impacting Clinton's campaign by forcing her aides to constantly comment on emails written long before Clinton ran for president.

And, for possibly this reason, Clinton told Lloyd Blankfein, the head of Goldman Sachs, at an event in October that she wished the presidential election was shorter.

"Look, I am of the mind that we cannot have endless campaigns," said. "It is bad for the candidates. It's bad for the country. I mean, part of the reason why it's difficult to govern is because an election ends and then the next day people start jockeying."

Michelle Obama takes on Trump's 'obscene' behavior

Listening to the audio tape last week of Donald Trump telling a chortling interviewer he employed his fame as an excuse to assault women, First Lady Michelle Obama grew incensed.

The man whose political career was born in the racially-tinged conspiracy about her husband's birth was describing in vile terms a penchant for sexual aggression. This was beyond the standard campaign trail rancor, the first lady would say later. It was something more.

With a campaign speech scheduled for the following week in New Hampshire, Democratic sources said the first lady set to work refining and updating a message she'd been seeking to deliver for a long time about Donald Trump's cruel language toward women.

"This is a speech that the first lady has wanted to personally deliver for a long time," said an aide. "It came directly from the first lady."

That address, delivered at a campaign inflection point as woman after woman emerged to accuse Trump of sexual misconduct, evolved into what could be one of the most effective political speeches of the year.

"I have to tell you that I can't stop thinking about this," the first lady said, who before this summer had rarely offered her insights into the emotional turbulence that comes with being a political spouse.

"It has shaken me to my core in a way that I couldn't have predicted," Obama said. "So while I'd love nothing more than to pretend like this isn't happening and to come out here and do my normal campaign speech, it would be dishonest and disingenuous to me to just move on to the next thing like this was all just a bad dream."

The first lady has carefully honed her public image since she entered the national spotlight more than eight years ago, in part through her direct style of speaking. And while she's advocated passionately for her chosen causes, like combating childhood obesity and supporting military families, she's largely kept her innermost thoughts on the country's political life private.

"In any position, you mature over time," said Desiree Rogers, the Obamas' first White House social secretary, who worked closely with the first lady at the beginning of her tenure in the East Wing. "You start to get your sea legs, you make decisions about what's going to be important to you."

"She's been graceful throughout this whole process and you get better and better at it, and I think that's what we see," Rogers added. "We see a very mature woman -- a woman who knows what she wants, knows what's important her. And most importantly, not afraid to speak about it."

Unlike the rhetorical gymnastics her husband has employed, Michelle Obama aims to get her message across by forging an emotional connection to her audience. Responsibility for much of what the first lady says in public rests in her speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz, who's described in interviews an ability to channel the first lady's voice as she's drafting her remarks.

"As I write for her now, I'm sort of editing the speech with her voice in my head because she's given me so much feedback over the years and been so clear about what she wants," Hurwitz told The Washington Post in June.

Through the first lady's office, Hurwitz declined to detail the preparation that went into Thursday's remarks. But those familiar with the speech's development described an address that sprung directly from the speaker herself.

Clinton's campaign hopes Trump's lewd remarks will disqualify the candidate in the eyes of women voters, and has jumped on every opportunity to deploy Trump's words against him. Michelle Obama, however, didn't need convincing, approaching the campaign already determined to voice her scathing rebuke.

"Of course the campaign was supportive," the aide said.

Unlike the President, Michelle Obama isn't prone to revising her speeches until the last minute, according to people who have worked for her in the past. A lawyer and executive before she became first lady, she is more comfortable with carefully executed drafts and at least one practice session.

For a speech with the deeply personal bent of Thursday's address, her former aides say there's little doubt the first lady spent many hours over the past days writing and perfecting her address. And while aides describe a healthy competition between husband and wife over political influence, there's little question the first lady consulted the President on her message.

Occupied with work on Air Force One when the speech aired live Thursday, President Barack Obama later watched a video of his wife's remarks on a long limo ride in Pittsburgh.

"I could not be prouder of her," the President said Friday.

New Trump accuser: GOP nominee grabbed, kissed me

Story highlights

• Heller, now 63, said she met Trump at Mar-a-Lago nearly 20 years ago
• CNN has not been able to independently confirm Heller's claims

Washington (CNN)Another woman stepped forward Saturday to accuse Donald Trump of sexual assault, saying he kissed her without her consent at his estate in Florida.

Cathy Heller joins a rapidly growing list of women who are accusing the GOP nominee of sexual assault in the week since a 2005 tape surfaced in which Trump bragged about being able to grope women and get away with it.

Heller, now 63, said she met Trump at Mar-a-Lago nearly 20 years ago while she and her family were having brunch, she told The Guardian newspaper.

Heller said she had been introduced to the GOP nominee by her mother-in-law. She told the paper the real estate magnate "took my hand, and grabbed me, and went for the lips," without her consent.

She said Trump held her in place and kissed her. CNN has not been able to independently confirm Heller's claims.

A spokesman for Trump's campaign said there was "no way" Heller's account is true.

"The media has gone too far in making this false accusation," Jason Miller said in a statement. "There is no way that something like this would have happened in a public place on Mother's Day at Mr. Trump's resort. It would have been the talk of Palm Beach for the past two decades. The reality is this: for the media to wheel out a politically motivated Democratic activist with a legal dispute against this same resort owned by Mr. Trump does a disservice to the public, and anyone covering this story should be embarrassed for elevating this bogus claim."

Heller has donated to Democratic campaigns on multiple occasions, including a $2,700 donation she made to Clinton's presidential campaign this year. She also told The Guardian "her husband's family is involved in a years-long effort to recover initiation fees that her late in-laws paid to join Mar-A-Lago."

But The Guardian said it corroborated Heller's claims with a relative who was seated at the dining table as well as a friend whom Heller told a year and half ago.

Heller is one of nearly 10 other women who have publicly accused Trump of sexual assault, including accounts of kissing and groping. Trump has vehemently denied all the allegations, suggesting they are surfacing now because of a "smear" campaign to derail his candidacy.

"Remember this, it's a rigged election because you have phony people coming up with phony allegations with no witnesses whatsoever," Trump said at a campaign rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. "The election is being rigged by corrupt media pushing completely false allegations and outright lies in an effort to elect her (Clinton) president."