The IRS also encouraged any U.S. citizens and companies that may have money in offshore accounts to contact the agency now before any possible illegal activity on their part is identified. According to media reports, the documents contain information on potentially thousands of U.S. citizens and firms that have at least an indirect connection to offshore accounts affiliated with Mossack Fonseca. Many other firms provide similar services, and the Treasury Department estimated last year that more than $300 billion dollars of illicit proceeds are generated in the United States annually, with criminals using such companies here and abroad to launder funds.

The problem with the quotes above is not merely their content — which suggests a presidential candidate not only “gushingly” fond of Wall Street speculators but unwilling to admonish them even to the smallest degree — but also that they reveal Clinton to have been dishonest about that content with American voters.

Last night in Brooklyn Mrs. Clinton said, “I did stand up to the banks. I did make it clear that their behavior would not be excused.”

Yet not a single attendee at any of Mrs. Clinton’s quarter-of-a-million-dollar speeches can recall her doing anything of the sort.

Release of the transcripts would therefore, it appears, have three immediate — and possibly fatal — consequences for Clinton’s presidential campaign:

It would reveal that Clinton lied about the content of the speeches at a time when she suspected she would never have to release them, nor that their content would ever be known to voters.

It would reveal that the massive campaign and super-PAC contributions Clinton has received from Wall Street did indeed, as Sanders has alleged, influence her ability to get tough on Wall Street malfeasance either in Congress or behind closed doors.

I

t would reveal that Clinton’s policy positions on — for instance — breaking up “too-big-to-fail” banks are almost certainly insincere, as they have been trotted out merely for the purposes of a presidential campaign.