Do I hear the sound of the political auctioneer ?

Chelsea Clinton Deployed to NYC Fundraiser Hosted by Wall Street Banker

Guests can pay $2,700 for picture with Chelsea

Chelsea Clinton / AP

BY: Brent Scher  
January 27, 2016 2:45 pm

As Hillary Clinton fights to dodge Bernie Sanders’s charge that she is in the pocket of Wall Street, her daughter Chelsea Clinton will be attending a fundraiser hosted by the head of an international investment bank.

Chelsea Clinton will be joined by Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook for the Wednesday fundraiser hosted by Evercore Partners executive Charles Myers, who has contributed between $10,001 and $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation.

Guests at the fundraiser, which is billed as a LGBT reception featuring Billie Jean King, can pay $2,700 for a picture with Chelsea.

Evercore Partners is no small-time financial firm. It was founded by major Democratic donor Roger Altman after he resigned from a Treasury Department post in the Clinton administration.

Altman was an economic adviser for Clinton’s failed 2008 campaign. He was also one of the earliest contributors to the Ready for Hillary Super PAC, which was used to build support for Clinton’s candidacy in 2016 before she officially announced her campaign. He also contributed $250,000 to Priorities USA, another pro-Clinton Super PAC.

Altman and other employees at Evercore have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to Clinton’s various political campaigns, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Evercore itself is not free of controversy. It had to fire one of its top bankers in 2014 after it became clear that he would have to plead guilty to multiple charges related to insider trading. The man was sentenced to 57 months in prison and forfeited $710,000 in earnings because he used internal knowledge of pending Evercore deals to influence his trading.

Clinton has been put on the defensive for her deep ties to financial industry, saying this week that Wall Street has “absolutely not” bought any influence from her with millions in campaign contributions and speaking fees.

She has attempted to use the 9/11 terrorist attack on downtown Manhattan to explain why Wall Street supports her, even though the industry’s contributions started flowing in before that date.

The head of a major banking association predicted last year that Clinton “would become Mrs. Wall Street if she’s elected.”

Chelsea Clinton, who briefly worked on Wall Street and is married to an investment banker, has been thrown into the campaign more in recent weeks as the battle between her mother and Sanders has heated up.

As Sanders rose in the polls, Chelsea attacked Sanders, saying he wants to dismantle Obamacare. That attack was declared false by fact checkers and scoffed at by liberals and conservatives alike.

Chelsea has also been deployed to fundraisers that may be too controversial for Hillary to attend herself. One example was a California fundraiser hosted by a board member of the National Iranian American Council, which opposes any sanctions on Iran and has close ties to the anti-American regime in Iran.

The Clinton campaign did not return a request for comment for this story.