Hillary Clinton vowed Tuesday in an open letter to the victims to the Wells Fargo scandal in which thousands of bank employees secretly opened accounts for customers to overcharge them that her administration would at last bring Wall Street to heel.
“In America, we have faith that when we open up a checking account, we aren’t opening ourselves up to being scammed. Whether you use a local credit union or community bank or one of the big national chains, we take it for granted that those institutions are fulfilling this basic responsibility to their consumers,” the open letter began.
Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf, who appeared Tuesday before the Senate Banking Committee, owes the bank’s victims a “clear explanation,” Clinton’s letter stated. “There is simply no place for this kind of outrageous behavior in America.”
Though America has made great strides in addressing the problems that led to the 2008 crash, she wrote, “the culture of misconduct and recklessness that preceded that crisis too often persists.”
The letter continued, and presented Clinton’s plan to bring the financial sector under control:
First, we need to defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. … Second, we need real consequences when firms on Wall Street break the law. … I’ve put forward an agenda to enhance accountability on Wall Street. Executives should be held individually accountable when rampant illegal activity happens on their watch. Their compensation should take a hit if their companies pay major fines. And they must face appropriate legal consequences if they break the law.
Third, we need to make sure that no financial institution is too big to manage. I’ll put additional safeguards in place to address the risks that the big banks continue to pose to our system. I’ll appoint regulators who will stand with taxpayers and consumers, not with big banks and their friends in Congress.
Clinton’s open letter comes amid her campaign’s disjointed efforts to convince voters she is serious about reining in Wall Street, despite her own ties to top financial firms.
Clinton’s campaign manager declined recently to say whether her administration would go specifically target members of the financial industry.
“I don’t know what to say,” Robby Mook said in a CNBC interview. “We are 100 percent focused on trying to elect Hillary Clinton, on earning votes, on getting our supporters out to vote. This is beyond premature right now.”
Clinton promised recently that her policy proposals would be financed by going after the super wealthy, which includes members of the financial industry.
“I’ll tell you how we’re going to pay for it,” she said in August, referring specifically to her economic agenda. “We’re going where the money is. We are going after the super wealthy, we are going after corporations, we are going after Wall Street so they pay their fair share.”
Clinton has been under pressure from Democrats to pursue a more progressive agenda, especially after Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., gave her a close primary race with a platform of higher taxes and an expanded federal government.
The Democratic presidential candidate has also been criticized for claiming she will be tough on Wall Street, even after members of the financial industry, including Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, have compensated her handsomely for paid speeches.
On Tuesday, in her open letter to Wells Fargo customers, Clinton reiterated her promise to make sure Wall Street plays by the rules.
“I’ll fight hard to make sure that Wall Street is working for Main Street — not the other way around,” she wrote. “We need to keep pushing to make the financial system safer and fairer. Let’s do it together.”
