Hillary Clinton's appointment Tuesday of former senator and interior secretary Ken Salazar to head her transition team, if elected, is undermining her professed opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The Democratic Party nominee for president has said repeatedly she opposes the trade pact President Obama is trying to get through Congress before his term ends, even though she previously described it as the "gold standard."

But Salazar was a paid lobbyist for TPP and remains an outspoken supporter of the deal.

In an op-ed in USA Today, Salazar called TPP the "greenest trade deal ever" and claimed it would help middle-class families get ahead. Salazar's law firm lobbied on behalf of global corporations to give Obama extra-constitutional fast-track power to push TPP through Congress.

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TPP has become a central issue in the presidential campaign.

Donald Trump charges its will send more American jobs overseas the same way NAFTA did and vows he would kill the deal if elected.

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The fierce opposition to TPP by Trump, the American people and Bernie Sanders, her opponent in the Democratic Party primaries, prompted Clinton to disavow her previous support for the deal.

As secretary of state, however, she helped negotiate the pact.

Clinton now says she opposes the TPP "in its current form," prompting many to question her honesty.

In the 1990s, Bill Clinton approved NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, even though he said he opposed it when he ran for president.

Even as Hillary mouths opposition to the TPP, her top advisers are saying she will make sure it is enacted no matter what she says on the campaign trail.

Longtime Clinton confidante Terry McAuliffe said that once the election is over, Hillary will push the TPP because she understands "we got to build a global economy."

Clinton's running mate, Tim Kaine, has supported TPP, though he, too, recently reversed himself.

The Salazar appointment has raised the ire of Bernie Sanders supporters. Norman Solomon, national coordinator of the progressive Bernie Delegates Network, said, "If Clinton wants to weasel her way through the TPP issue and set off a war with progressives inside her own party in the process, she's off to a great start."

This comes after Obama officially notified Congress he will send TPP to Congress for a vote in the lame-duck session after the election, as WND has reported.

Hillary Clinton has pointedly refused to lobby Democrats to vote against TPP in the lame-duck session, setting off a firestorm within her party.

The progressive Campaign for America's Future noted, "It is not enough for Clinton to say she is against TPP; [she needs to be] putting herself on the front line, calling Democrats and twisting arms and making deals to persuade members of Congress to vote against it."

The liberal organizations Democracy for America and CREDO are blasting Clinton in an online petition that gained over 60,000 signatures within hours.

"Sec. Clinton herself has yet to make a public statement opposing a lame-duck vote," the petition says. "Tell Sec. Clinton: Publicly oppose a lame-duck vote on TPP … we need to let her know we are counting on her to take the lead in opposing a lame-duck vote."

The Republican Party platform states that trade agreements such as TPP should not be taken up in a lame-duck session of Congress.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., a top adviser to Donald Trump, blasted the TPP.

"Americans know these agreements have allowed trade practices that unfairly close manufacturing plants, costing millions of high-paying jobs," Sessions said.

Sessions said any move to enact it in a lame-duck session of Congress is an insult to the American people, who have made their opposition to the pact clear.

"President Obama knows that the only chance he has of passing the TPP is during this short window [of the lame duck]. His determination flies in the face of the clear will of the American people, as demonstrated in the primaries," Sessions stated.

Salazar's law firm, WilmerHale, lobbied Congress on behalf of the Business Roundtable, an association of major globalist corporations, to give Obama "fast-track" Trade Promotion Authority.

David Limbaugh's book chillingly documents the destructive "transformation" of the United States – get "The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama's War on the Republic"