Banks Behind HRC's Canadian Speeches Really Want Keystone Pipeline [View all]

[Divernan]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/31/hillary-clinton-speeches-keystone_n_7463108.html

WASHINGTON -- Two Canadian banks tightly connected to promoting the controversial Keystone XL pipeline in the United States either fully or partially paid for eight speeches made by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the period not long before she announced her campaign for president. Those speeches put more than $1.6 million in the Democratic candidate's pocket.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and TD Bank were both primary sponsors of paid Clinton speeches in 2014 and early 2015, although only the former appears on the financial disclosure form she filed May 15. According to that document, CIBC paid Clinton $150,000 for a speech she gave in Whistler, British Columbia, on Jan. 22, 2015.

Clinton reported that another five speeches she gave across Canada were paid for by tinePublic Inc., a promotional company known for hosting speeches by world leaders and celebrities. Another speech was reported as paid for by the think tank Canada 2020, while yet another speech was reportedly funded by the Vancouver Board of Trade. But a review of invitations, press releases and media reports for those seven other speeches reveals that they, too, were either sponsored by or directly involved the two banks.

Both banks have financial ties to TransCanada, the company behind the Keystone XL pipeline, and have advocated for a massive increase in pipeline capacity, including construction of Keystone. Further, Gordon Giffin, a CIBC board member and onetime U.S. ambassador to Canada, is a former lobbyist for TransCanada and was a contributions bundler for Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Tremendous amount of further factual detail in the above article, which further quotes from details in this link:
http://ronbryn.blogspot.com/2015/05/canadian-bank-us-probed-multiple-times.html

Sunday, May 17, 2015
Headline: Canadian bank (which) US probed multiple times for fraud paid up to $1M for Hillary Clinton speeches

The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce may only appear once on former State Secretary Hillary Clinton's mandatory financial disclosure form, but the 2016 US presidential candidate seems to have netted close to ten percent of her recent speech income from the bank which has a history of "often" being investigated for fraud by the US. Since campaign officials and organizers duck multiple media inquiries, it's hard to get the whole financial picture just from what has been publicly revealed. But it appears that the foreign bank paid close to $900,000 for Hillary Clinton speeches just in the last eight months alone.

"Hillary Clinton gave 51 paid speeches for a total of nearly $12 million since January 2014," Josh Gerstein and Louis Nelson reported for Politico. However, four-to-five of those speeches appear to have been sponsored by the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), and Clinton's fee also seemed to rise until she entered the presidential race.

Journalists following the Clinton 2016 presidential campaign as it travels across the US have complained that she went over three weeks without replying to questions from the press, but Dodig has essentially paid her for at least four "interviews" delivered to thousands of Canadians within the last year.

On Twitter, CNN political producer Dan Merica - who is currently covering the Clinton campaign - joked, "@cibc CEO Victor Dodig has interviewed Hillary Clinton 3x (Edmonton, Ottawa & Winnipeg) in the last yr. What U.S. news anchor can say that?"

And yes!, my second link is to a source which quotes numbers/facts from a Politico report. As I noted in a comment on an OP by Babylon Sister, in which she relied on a Politico report, and which OP was prominently featured on DU's Homepage (May 18 - http://betterment.democraticunderground.com/10026687757):

Try posting a link from Politico which includes negative facts about either Clinton or their foundation's finances and you'll be flamed from here to Sunday with scathing remarks about what a right wing rag Politico is.

If it's (Politico) a good enough source for Babylon Sister, and for Earl G. to give it pride of place on the Home Page, then it's hypocritical to trash it as a source when you don't like the message. Disagree with the author of an article based on the content of the article, not the fact that he/she was published in Politico.