It’s not about giving the speech, or getting paid for it. It’s that she has repeatedly made the public claim that she went around admonishing Wall St, contradicting the many eye-witness accounts that suggest she gave rousing speeches in praise of them. There’s a discrepancy. Either the witness accounts are incorrect, or Mrs Clinton’s are.

We know she has a transcript because the contracts stipulate that a stenographer be paid for as part of the fee. Mrs Clinton could easily resolve the discrepancy by releasing the transcripts. The fact that she doesn’t gives reasonability to the assumption that her account is misleading.

If somebody accuses me of dishonesty, and I have proof otherwise, I’m not going to hide behind the notion of privacy and allow the accusations to go unanswered. Especially not if I’m running for an office in which the integrity of my character matters so much. Besides, I’m not sure personal privacy is a reasonable defence when the speech was given to a large number of people.

On the balance of probability, Mrs Clinton gave speeches to Goldman Sachs whose contents would be politically damaging to her campaign. She could make the story go away by releasing the transcripts. That it drags on hurts all the Democrats’ downticket races by association. That she doesn’t do so indicates that she has more to lose than she has to gain.

In other words, she’s lying to the American public about the kinds of opinions she expresses about the financial sector when she thinks the voting public doesn’t have access to scrutinise her.