Obama said he wouldn’t go to Wall Street post-WH to make money

theblaze.com

News broke last week that former President Barack Obama will give a speech at a health care conference hosted by a mid-sized Manhattan Wall Street investment firm later this year.

The announcement seemingly broke with a decade of criticism Obama launched at Wall Street. During his eight year presidency, Obama maintained that Wall Street was responsible for the 2008 financial crisis and demanded increased reforms, regulation and accountability of the “big banks.”

In a 60 “Minutes” interview in 2009, Obama famously said: “I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street.”

But come September, Obama will accept a $400,000 check from Cantor Fitzgerald for a one hour keynote speech.

And while the decision breaks with years of rhetoric from the former Democratic president, it also breaks with what Obama said just prior to leaving the White House.

In a “60 Minutes” interview just days prior to leaving office in January, “60 Minutes” host Steve Kroft asked Obama: “You’re not going to go to Wall Street, make a lot of money?”

“I am not going to Wall Street,” Obama replied. “The amount of time that I’ll be investing in issues is going to be high. But it’ll be necessarily in a different capacity.”