McClatchy's SunHerald: Bill Clinton’s Wall Street cash puts wife in a tricky spot

If Hillary Clinton wins the White House, the financial industry payments and likely hefty donations to her campaign are “going to put her in a spot when she comes up with policies toward Wall Street,” said Lawrence Noble, a senior counsel to the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center.

“One of the dilemmas she’s going to face is that even if she makes a decision based totally on its merits, and she in her heart of hearts believes it’s the right thing to do, people are going to see it through the frame of receiving money from Wall Street,” he said.

However, Noble emphasized that since a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling all but eliminated constraints on election financing by corporations and wealthy individuals, a Republican presidential candidate could benefit from even greater financial backing. Billionaire conservatives such as brothers Charles and David Koch, who own a huge oil industry company, and Las Vegas casino owner Sheldon Adelson are expected to put hundreds of millions of dollars behind their favorite Republican candidates.

Noble, a former general counsel of the Federal Elections Commission, recalled the agency’s major investigation into Bill Clinton’s fundraising for the Democratic National Committee.

“What it told me about Bill Clinton was they were going to play fast and loose with the campaign finance rules . . . cozy up to people with a lot of money,” he said.