Top advisers to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton were worried that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) could throw her support to Bernie Sanders if Clinton went too easy on Wall Street.
An email exchange published Monday by WikiLeaks shows that some on Clinton’s team were worried that a weak Wall Street plan could “antagonize and activate” Warren and perhaps even push her into Sanders’s camp.
{mosads}WikiLeaks claimed Monday that it had published 2,000 new documents that were stolen from the email files of John Podesta, the chairman of Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Included in those messages was an exchange among top Clinton advisers over how hard she should take on Wall Street, at a time when she was under pressure from the left.
At the center of the debate was whether to include in Clinton’s policy blueprint for Wall Street reform a return of the Glass-Steagall Act, a now-repealed law that once separated traditional banking and commercial banking.
A return of the law, which was repealed in the late 1990s, has been a frequent rallying cry on the left, as Warren and others have insisted risky Wall Street trading should be wholly separated from traditional banking activities.
Clinton ultimately opted not to include a call for Glass-Steagall’s return in her policy plan, but the emails indicate it was under significant discussion, in part due to concern Warren could join Sanders if it were missing.
“I am still worried that we will antagonize and activate Elizabeth Warren by opposing a new Glass Steagall. I worry about defending the banks in the debate,” wrote Mandy Grunwald, one of Clinton’s longtime advisers. “I worry about Elizabeth deciding to endorse Bernie.”
Warren, a major liberal heavyweight who some on the left pushed to run in 2016, ended up sitting out the Democratic primary and endorsed Clinton after she had the nomination effectively sewn up.
The debate among Clinton’s team appears to be in reference to the drafting of a Bloomberg op-ed, published in October 2015, that laid out Clinton’s vision for regulating Wall Street.
While Grunwald said Clinton was “kind of leaning towards” backing Glass-Steagall in the piece, the op-ed ultimately argued for “a different way” towards regulating banks.
“One serious approach being advocated is to pass an updated Glass-Steagall Act, separating commercial and investment banking, to reduce the size of the banks and the risk of a taxpayer bailout,” the op-ed read. “I certainly share the goal of never having to bail out the big banks again, but I prefer the path of tackling the most dangerous risks in a different way.”
A separate email from the exchange indicates that the return of Glass-Steagall was once part of Clinton’s Wall Street plan. A call for the return of that modernized version of that law was ultimately adopted as part of the official Democratic Party platform.
Earlier this month, the U.S. government formally accused the Russian government of attempting to influence the presidential election through hacking attempts.