Democrat's Must Face Party's Betrayal On TPP & Refuse To Support It (Demo)

After a meeting Thursday with leaders of labor unions, who oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership,Secretary Clinton claimed, “I did not work on TPP.” She then added: “I never had any direct responsibility for the negotiations at all.” Award-winning, investigative reporter, David Sirota, has exposed that assertion as false in his International Business Times article “Cables Show Hillary Clinton’s State Department Deeply Involved in Trans-Pacific Partnership.”

Full disclosure: This Syracuse Progressive Examiner, who has taken the , is a supporter of Senator Sanders and David Sirota worked for Congressman Sanders years ago.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is an un-American trade andcorporate-crafted regulatory regime neo-liberals want to impose on the United States and eleven other nations. (For more on the TPP, see the “Suggested Links” below.)

In “Secretary Clinton’s trade dilemma will require disingenuous response” published here in May, the argument was made that she would be less than honest about her position on the TPP. The question posed in that column, “will … cynical voters care enough to matter if she does get caught lying?” is more pertinent after her claims Thursday.

As Secretary of State, Clinton publicly promoted the pact 45 separate times. Now that her Democratic presidential rivals are making opposition to the deal a core issue of their campaigns, Clinton is claiming she was never involved in the initiative.

However, Sirota noted that Clinton told lawmakers at a congressional hearing in 2011 “with respect to the TPP, although the State Department does not have the lead on this — it is the United States Trade Representative — we work closely with the USTR.” Recently, she has attempted to walk a tightrope overthe TPP; but a series of State Department cables show that the Clinton-run State Department was in fact a major player in pushing the initiative.

Sirota’s story notes that those cables, dated from September 2009 to January 2010, include one from December 2009 pointing out that Secretary Clinton “hosted a dinner on December 21 for Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement country representatives.” Perhaps they were discussing football.

In June this year, President Obama’s National Security Adviser Susan Rice dismissed the idea that Clinton was not involved in the TPP. Secretary Clinton “was integrally involved in all of the major initiatives of the first term of the administration,” said Rice, who served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations when Clinton was Secretary of State. “She was instrumental in formulating and implementing the rebalance to Asia, of which the Trans-Pacific Partnership is a part.”

Secretary Clinton knows that all of organized labor is opposed to the TPP. Apparently, she will say whatever she believes she can get away with to cinch the Democratic Party nomination. “People should and do trust me,” she conveyed to CNN’s Brianna Keilar last month. According to at least one poll, the latter claim is not factual either. As to the first part, that she “should” be trusted, the question remains, will Democratic Party primary voters and caucus-goers allow her to lie her way into the White House? If thecurrent lead in the polls Clinton holds over Senator Sanders and others contending for the nomination holds over the next few months, the answer to that question will become evident.

Update, 8/05/2015: Secretary Clinton’s Communications Director, Jennifer Palmieri, was on Reliable Sources last Sunday complaining that the NY Times did not contact the Clinton campaign for comment before running the story about criminal investigations into the emails sent from her server. Palmieri was tweeted this story for feedback, and the response to date? Crickets.