$153M in Bill and Hillary Clinton speaking fees, documented

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/02/05/politics/hillary-clinton-bill-clinton-paid-speeches/

by doener • 10 years ago

60 49 10 years ago

edition.cnn.com

puppetmaster3• 10 years ago

In most EU countries they would be jailed.

luckydata• 10 years ago

why? It's not illegal to speak for a fee in any country of the EU as far as I know.

Jerry2• 10 years ago

Payments they're receiving are not really for their speeches. It's just a way to legally funnel money into their organization so they can sell access and influence.

shitgoose• 10 years ago

I guess her speech was worth every penny. Such a good speech. Goldman liked it. Too bad the rest of us cannot enjoy it. Let's all pitch in and collect $225,000 for Hillary, so she can give a speech to us (over Skype maybe). I also want to be touched by Hillary's greatness.

6502nerdface• 10 years ago

In most EU countries they would be jailed.

I'm sorry, but I read TFA and I'm not sure what you could be referring to... is it illegal in most EU countries for an event organizer to pay an honorarium to their invited speakers? Or to pay for speech in general? Consider that many make an honest and honorable living in this way... For example, Stephen King has earned tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars for his speech.

jkestner• 10 years ago

Not speaking to the legality, an honorarium is a token amount. This is not.

Gustomaximus• 10 years ago

Really? For the speeches and conflict of interest? Or something else?

You rarely see an EU politician charged, let alone gaoled, especially those so high in the establishment hierarchy so I'm not overly convinced.

Spooky23• 10 years ago

Ever hear of Berlusconi?

He was eventually dealt with legally, but only for his dealings with underage prostitutes.

ksar• 10 years ago

There are prevailing market rates for high profile appearances. There is an associated economic rationale: celebrities who show up at the club, earn those places more money.

Spending this kind of cash on public servants serves an economic purpose too: it buys access, influence, and favour by association. You can't really prove it, but you can reason that this is to the detriment of the public at large.

Alex39172• 10 years ago

There are prevailing market rates for high profile appearances.

The problem isn't that they charged for the speeches, which is standard. The problem is that they kept the money for themselves, which is a huge ethics issue.

koolba• 10 years ago

It doesn't matter if they keep the money, donate it to their self run slush fund[1], or launder it through the Democratic Party[2]. The ethics issue is taking money from people who you're supposed to be regulating and misrepresenting your allegiances to voters.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_Foundation

[2] http://www.mahablog.com/2016/02/23/elaborating-on-the-dnc-cl...

kevin_thibedeau• 10 years ago

Both of them are currently private citizens. They have no ethical obligation to do anything with their income.

peteretep5• 10 years ago

    > You can't really prove it, but you can reason that
    > this is to the detriment of the public at large

I'm glad that high-profile politicians know they have a guaranteed income from speaking engagements so that they don't feel any need to make more nefarious pension arrangements.

dforrestwilson12• 10 years ago

It truly astounds me that people just shrug and say "That's politics" when you point this sort of thing out.

It was not always this way. There is a clear conflict of interest.

pbreit• 10 years ago

Well at that level, it probably all cancels each other out.

peteretep5• 10 years ago

    > It was not always this way

Citation?

kzhahou2• 10 years ago

Citation:

[1] The good ol' days.

dforrestwilson12• 10 years ago

Here's a book on the subject: https://books.google.com/books/about/Corruption_in_America.h...

KKKKkkkk1• 10 years ago

Let's say I'm a VP at Google and I'm moonlighting as a consultant for startups. If you were Google and you found out that I earned $153M from this, how would you feel about this?

beambot• 10 years ago

The VP is likely required by employment contract to submit all such relationships (contracting, consulting, advisor boards, board of directors, and maybe even angel investments) to Google beforehand so that Google can run a conflict if interest check and give their blessing or prohibit the activity.

kzhahou2• 10 years ago

What's Google's policy on speaking fees? Or are you just curious how people would emotionally react to find a co-worker making a lot of money on the side?

frogpelt2• 10 years ago

It's no secret that Bill Clinton has made somewhere in the neighborhood of $250k per speech since he was president.

This number doesn't surprise me.

I'm surprised people want to hear what he has to say that much but I say if he can get that much, he should keep giving talks.

kmkemp• 10 years ago

It's not just the content, but his popularity and speaking ability.

tn132• 10 years ago

It is not content. It is about buying contacts. Bill makes some phone call that enables a meeting with someone somewhere which leaves you rich and you pay some kickback. This is blatant corruption by people who are supposedly fighting for poor.

cromwellian• 10 years ago

Kate Couric got $110,000 for a speech and she's a newscaster/anchor. I think you need to look at the broader market for paid speeches before you throw out such accusations.

The Clintons were not born with silver spoons in their mouth, and they grew from modest origins to where they are today. I don't hold it against them that they're able to command such high speaking fees anymore than some musicians can command high prices for concerts, or actors can command high salaries for movie parts.

The whole campaign to argue Hillary is corrupt hasn't really worked, and that's essentially what these kinds of articles are, an extension of the Sanders campaign argument. But her voting record is among the most liberal in Congress, more than her husband, more than Obama, it's more liberal than 82% of all congressional votes. (Susan Sarandon was on Bill Maher the other day and simply didn't want to hear the facts he raised about her voting record.)

Clinton has a penchant for policy wonkishness that doesn't sit well with young impatient progressives who want to make a quantum leap from here to there. So for example, if one is for a $12 minimum wage first, instead of forcing the entire nation to $15 instantly, because one is worried about the effect of a 200% increase to say, Bob's coffee-shop in Nebraska, one get's raked over the coals. Why is it so hard to understand there's a huge cost of living difference in SF/NYC vs other states and a federal minimum wage quantum jump like that should be done cautiously?

If one is for fracking as a temporary bridge, because natural gas is cleaner than coal and releases less CO2 if your regulate methane leakage and protect ground water, as well as sending less money to regimes which spread Wahhabism with the money, then of course, you're really just a neo-liberal owned by the Kochs. But is it realistic to ban fracking and coal and switch totally to renewables without a transition? You can't just be against something without a viable alternative.

I agree with pretty much everything Sanders wants to do, but I want a realistic vision of how to accomplish it and a reasonable time span. I don't like the way anyone who wants to advocate an iterative, incremental approach is shouted down as an establishment sell out. There's too much guilt-by-association going on, and not enough realistic discussion of the nuanced policy choices we face.

GabrielF002• 10 years ago

That's not how it works, or at the very least, it's a lot less black and white than that. There are enough people who will pay money to get a picture with Bill Clinton, or to hear Clinton speak, that it's completely worth it for an organization to spend a few hundred thousand dollars on his speaking fees.

A number of years ago my Dad was involved with a healthcare non-profit organization that paid Bill Clinton $125,000 for a speech (I don't remember the exact figure). They had him speak at a big theater, where a couple thousand people paid $100+. Then they had him as the featured guest at a dinner, which cost donors thousands of dollars to attend. They also had him tour their organization with the media. So all told, the organization raised a few hundred thousand dollars and got a lot of publicity.

Private sector companies - some big financial company or the National Association of Whatever - can get similar value from a Clinton speech. Maybe they can get money directly by selling tickets to a dinner with Clinton and having having him be the keynote speaker at their paid conference, or maybe they can use it as a reward/incentive for their clients (with the most important clients getting the most access to Clinton).

[Edit: I looked up Clinton's fee, it was $125,000)

maxxxxx5• 10 years ago

This is not about the speeches. It's about buying influence with well connected people.

Grishnakh3• 10 years ago

If this were just some ex-President making a ton of cash for speeches, I really wouldn't care. The problem is that he's gunning for the White House, as "First Dude" (or whatever the title will be; we've never had one before).

Hillary constantly uses her experience as First Lady as political experience, and basically touts it as equivalent to VP or more. Similarly, if Hillary wins, Bill isn't going to just sit around the WH and screw interns (though he'll probably do that too), he's going to be using it as a political office, just like she did, and he'll use his position as her husband to influence her. So these people paying "speaking fees" are really just practicing legalized bribery.

frogpelt2• 10 years ago

First Gentleman?

maxxxxx5• 10 years ago

I have read that they also get paid around 300k for college commencement speeches. I think a lot of people think those speeches are made for free to support young people. So the speaker gets a boatload of money and a lot of credit for doing something good for youth. A double win.

bobwaycott• 10 years ago

Is this funded by tuitions?

_delirium• 10 years ago

It's typically funded by university budgets, so in part by tuition. Sometimes universities will claim it's funded out of non-tuition money, but money is fungible so it's hard to really say that credibly, unless you can demonstrate that it's funded by entirely separate money that wouldn't have existed had it not been for the commencement speaker. For example claiming it's funded entirely by a major donor is misleading if it's money the major donor would have donated anyway.

Grishnakh3• 10 years ago

I really have to question why this article is on HN; this site seems to normally highly discourage political discussion, and I really don't see what this has to do with tech. If you mods want to have political discussions, go ahead, but don't be surprised if they turn nasty, as they usually do in online forums.

Gratsby• 10 years ago

The only reason this is an issue during this election is that nobody would pay Sanders anything significant to speak.

A former POTUS and the woman who has come closest to the office in history? That's a draw. It's worth paying for.

pessimizer• 10 years ago

You must be confusing these speeches with concerts. The groups who pay for these speeches are not selling tickets to them and pocketing the difference.

edit: I worked for a sometimes controversial lobbying organization who hired H. Clinton to speak, and they 1) knew exactly what they were buying, and 2) weren't interested at all in the content of the actual speech.

comex• 10 years ago

Your second paragraph is a valid criticism, but the first is illogical.

The groups who pay for these speeches are not selling tickets to them and pocketing the difference.

It seems that in some cases they are doing exactly that, if you count private fundraisers (not Clinton's own campaign fundraisers):

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hillary-clinton-what-225000-and-p...

In other cases, attending the speech is presumably a perk of being in a high position at the companies in question, and like any other perk it can be priced despite individuals not directly paying for it.

(I suspect that a significant part of the demand is neither bribery nor related to the content of the speeches, but based on the attendee's desire to feel prestigious by being at an exclusive event. To this extent, it makes sense to hide the cost for the individual attendees behind indirections such as perks or fundraising for charity, because a more direct quid pro quo would cheapen the prestige by assigning it explicit monetary value. This is not to say that influence is not also a factor, which it surely is.)

GabrielF002• 10 years ago

I heard Bill Clinton speak at a fundraiser for a healthcare non-profit (see my comment above for a more detailed description). The organization paid Clinton $100,000+ to speak (this was 10 years ago at least) and then sold tickets for $100+ for the speech and for thousands of dollars to a private dinner. IIRC it was a very successful fundraiser for them and they netted several hundred thousand dollars.

jqm• 10 years ago

It's not worth paying for and the "real" service rendered for payment is suspect.

$153M in Bill and Hillary Clinton speaking fees, documented

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