Hillary Clinton in early February appeared on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos to defend her relationship with Wall Street as her primary challenger Bernie Sanders had been pillorying her over paid speeches to Goldman Sachs, according to the <em>Huffington Post</em> yesterday. A video of Elizabeth Warren was circulating showing the consumer champion criticizing Clinton for supporting a bankruptcy bill that helped credit card companies squeeze vulnerable families. People had it all wrong, Clinton told Stephanopoulos: She hadn’t switched her position to appease financiers, but had helped women’s groups fix the bill to protect single mothers. However, according to a trove of internal emails recently released by WikiLeaks, Clinton’s team knew the true story. “We have a problem,” Clinton senior policy advisor Ann O’Leary wrote to campaign staffers that afternoon. “HRC overstayed (sic) her case this morning in a pretty big way. She said women groups were all pressuring her to vote for it,” O’Leary wrote back. “Evidence does not support that statement.” The bankruptcy bill, which was eventually signed into law in 2005, was designed to make it harder for people to qualify for bankruptcy ― a process in which a judge can discharge personal debts, allowing people to start over financially, albeit with a ruined credit rating. “While this amendment may have provided some political cover, it offers virtually no financial help to single mothers, since the overwhelming majority of ex-husbands don’t pay anything in distributions during bankruptcy,” Warren wrote in her 2004 book, The Two-Income Trap. Over 30 women and family groups opposed the bill, including the Children’s Defense Fund ― where Clinton once worked ― the Feminist Majority Foundation, the National Organization for Women, the National Women’s Law Center and the National Youth Law Center, according to a Women’s eNews article from 2001.
