For those who haven’t had their fill of email scandals this election season, one publishing company has got you covered.
OR Books, an independent progressive publisher based in New York City, announced a January launch for the book, “Hillary Clinton: The Goldman Sachs Speeches.”
The publisher has taken five of Clinton speeches — including the three she gave to Goldman Sachs for $675,000 a pop — and slapped on an introduction from the man responsible for leaking them, WikiLeaks founder (and the new darling of the alt-right) Julian Assange.
The speeches come with annotations throughout from Doug Henwood, a journalist who has written extensively about why progressives should not trust Clinton. The price will be $16 for paperback or $10 for the ebook version.
Henwood’s annotation may provide legal cover for OR to publish Clinton’s speeches — which she has not given permission to be released, let alone published in book form.
OR Books co-publisher Colin Robinson told TheWrap it could print the Democratic candidate’s speeches in full under the legal doctrine of “fair use,” which allows the publication of copyrighted material for a limited or “transformative” purpose.
Asked whether he was planning to pay Clinton for her work, Robinson said, “She already got paid for those.”
Assange made a similar point in his introduction. “Hillary Clinton made significant money from delivering these three speeches to Goldman Sachs immediately after stepping down from her role as Secretary of State,” he wrote. “Now we can all profit from learning what the likely future President says behind closed doors.”