During the last Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton said she went to Wall Street to tell banks to take responsibility and stop foreclosures in 2007 but a video has emerged to show that her description of events was untrue.



“No one in Congress told banks to ‘cut out’ foreclosures even when the crisis got much worse, and least of all, a Blue Dog Democrat who represents Wall Street and became Senator here as opposed to the more logical Illinois with the intent of currying favor with them,” said Yves Smith, an investment banker and management consultant who has written for The New York Times, Al Jazeera, the New Republic, Salon, and other publications.

Smith says Clinton blamed homeowners, not banks, in direct contradiction to her assertion during the debate.

“Clinton didn’t simply pretend to do something she didn’t. She abjectly falsified her history,” said Smith.

“It’s not surprising that Hillary hasn’t been willing to take on Big Finance,” said Smith. “What is surprising is that she has the arrogance to think that voters will believe otherwise.”

When Clinton ran for president during her second term as New York’s U.S. Senator, she gave a speech at the NASDAQ headquarters on December 5, 2007 — before the financial crisis reached a boiling point — with halfhearted remarks about reforming Wall Street’s housing loan practices that largely excused financial criminals for their behavior.

“Now these economic problems are certainly not all Wall Street’s fault – not by a long shot,” Clinton told the bankers, later adding, that homeowners “should have known they were getting in over their heads” when they entered complex financial agreements to obtain mortgage loans.

“Homebuyers who paid extra fees to avoid documenting their income should have known they were getting in over their heads,” Clinton said.

Banks, not homeowners, caused financial crisis

Out of all 50 states, Hillary Clinton’s constituents in New York were some of the hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis. The U.S. Department of Justice’s $13 billion mortgage fraud settlement with JP Morgan set aside an entire $1 billion in restitution just for New York homeowners, out of a total $4 billion allocated for consumer relief. The bank was sued for selling mortgage-backed securities to investors, knowing full well the investments were bogus.

In 2014, Bank of America paid a larger $16 billion settlement for committing the same crime in the years leading up to the financial meltdown. While Bear Stearns helped package mortgage-backed securities for JP Morgan, Bank of America’s partner-in-crime in peddling bogus securities was Merrill Lynch. Out of the $16.65 billion, $300 million was set aside for New York homeowners.

The loans Hillary Clinton referred to in her December 2007 speech, in which potential home buyers pay extra fees to not disclose their income, accounted for 40 percent of new mortgages between 2006 and 2007, according to Forbes.

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