2001 was Hillary’s Year of Great Fortune, not of being “dead broke”
It was not a “Hard Choice” for Hillary simply to have told the truth about the vast fortune she and Bill accumulated immediately upon leaving office.
Hillary Clinton’s interview with Diane Sawyer is getting a lot of attention because Hillary explained the $100 million plus she and Bill have made giving speeches as necessitated by their near poverty upon leaving office:
SAWYER: You’ve made five million making speeches? The president’s made more than a hundred million dollars?
CLINTON: Well, you have no reason to remember, but we came out of the White House not only dead broke but in debt. We had no money when we got there, and we struggled to piece together the resources for mortgages for houses, for Chelsea’s education. You know, it was not easy. Bill has worked really hard and it’s been amazing to me. He’s worked very hard. First of all, we had to pay off all our debts. You know, you had to make double the money because of, obviously, taxes, and then pay off the debts and get us houses and take care of family members.
The problem is not that the Clintons made a fortune. This is America, after all. People are entitled to make a fortune so long as they do so lawfully, and we’ve not yet reached the point where the law dictates when people have made enough.
The problem is that Hillary is not being straight with the public.
It is true, as The Fix at WaPo documents, that the Clintons left office with a lot of debt, much of it related to legal fees, which was paid down by 2004.
It’s equally true that the Clintons made financial deals before leaving office and soon thereafter that rendered the debt more than manageable, and generated tons of income.
In mid-December 2000, a month before Bill left office, Hillary signed a book deal with a near record $8 million advance:
Senator-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton agreed last night to sell Simon & Schuster a memoir of her years as first lady, for the near-record advance of about $8 million.
The deal ends a frantic weeklong bidding war that provoked widespread curiosity about just what she planned to write. Mrs. Clinton had told publishers she planned to discuss her feelings about the scandals of her husband’s administration as well as her thoughts about women’s changing roles in the world….
Some publishers initially said that Mrs. Clinton sought almost all of her advance upfront, pushing to sign a contract by the end of the year. But people close to Mrs. Clinton said that she never requested the whole advance right away. Other publishers said only upfront payments up to half the total were discussed.
In 2001, Bill made $9.1 million in speaking fees, Hillary received $2,8 million of her book advance, and they had at least several million in the bank and investments, Mrs. Clinton Reports That Her Husband Made $9.2 Million From Speeches Last Year:
Former President Bill Clinton received $9.2 million in his first year out of office for giving 59 speeches to investment banks, Jewish and Israeli groups, public relations companies, advertising agencies and other organizations, according to a financial disclosure form filed today by his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.
In addition, Mrs. Clinton earned $2.8 million last year as part of an $8 million advance for her memoirs….
The Clintons were required to disclose only Mr. Clinton’s income from honorariums, according to his spokeswoman, and thus other income, from sources like his book deal, is not disclosed. Mr. Clinton’s book contract includes an advance of more than $10 million….
By far the biggest asset reported in Mrs. Clinton’s filing today was accounts at Citibank that contained $5 million to $25 million and generated $100,000 to $1 million in interest income. The family’s second-largest asset was a blind trust that contained $1 million to $5 million but lost an undisclosed amount last year.
In August 2001, Bill signed a $10 million record book deal, Clinton Signs Record Book Deal:
Former President Clinton has agreed to write his memoirs for Alfred A. Knopf, the publisher announced Monday, in perhaps the biggest deal ever for a nonfiction work.
Terms were not immediately disclosed, but the New York Times reported on its Web site that the 42nd president agreed to an advance of more than $10 million. The book is expected to be out in 2003.
That figure could be just the tip of the iceberg. The Washington Post reports the former president has received dozens of inquiries from international publishers who hope to buy foreign rights to the book.
On top of all this was the tawdry spectacle of the Clintons receiving questionable gifts in preparation for their departure from the White House:
Less than a week after leaving the White House, Bill and Hillary Clinton are facing criticism for accepting gifts worth $190,000 for their New York State home.
There have been allegations of favouritism, as one of the donors is the former wife of fugitive financier Marc Rich, who was pardoned by Mr Clinton on his last day in office.
And the even more tawdry spectacle of the Clintons having purloined White House furnishings, as this February 6, 2001 NY Times report recounts:
Former President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton received authorization to take certain household furnishings to their new homes as gifts but will return any items that are found to be White House property, a spokesman said today.
In the latest criticism over their departure from the White House, the Clintons faced questions today about taking $28,000 worth of furnishings, which two donors were quoted as saying had been intended to become part of the permanent White House collection, not gifts to the Clintons.
The disclosure, reported in today’s Washington Post, came three days after the Clintons said they would pay $86,000 to cover the value of gifts they received last year in an effort to avoid the appearance of impropriety. The couple had originally sought to leave with $190,000 in gifts.
Officials said that at least $28,000 worth of furnishings, donated in 1993 as part of the White House restoration project, had been registered by the National Park Service as gifts to the permanent collection of the White House and not the Clintons.
The removal of White House furnishings started a year before Bill left office, The L.A. Times reported on February 10, 2001:
President Clinton and his wife started shipping White House furniture to the Clintons’ newly purchased home in New York more than a year ago, despite questions at the time by the White House chief usher about whether they were entitled to remove the items.
The day before the items were shipped out, chief usher Gary Walters said he questioned whether the Clintons should be taking the furnishings because he believed they were government property donated as part of a White House redecoration project in 1993, during Clinton’s first year in office.
And I haven’t even mentioned the pension and other support payments ex-Presidents receive.
For Hillary Clinton to present herself and Bill as “dead broke” in 2001 just is not true. In fact, it’s false.
That’s the problem with Hillary’s interview with Diane Sawyer.
It was not a hard choice to tell the truth. But it’s a choice Hillary chose not to make.
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Comments
Cue the violins!!!! Dead broke, really????? These politicians always have other people willing to fund them by purchasing homes for them, funding their non-profits and funding their stupid political campaigns. Her daughter has a mega place in NYC and a massive salary which she had a snowball’s chance of having with out having Clinton as a last name. The are all pompous frauds.
You have to remember her reality.
To this woman, ‘investing’ $ 1,000 in some stock for cow belly futures, and cashing it out for $ 100,000 a few months later, is just ‘good smart investing’.
Like we all should be doing.
Also, a BJ is not a sex act. In case you were considering giving or getting one later. It’s not sex.
a BJ is not a sex act SHE would perform. Just sayin’ that’s why Bill strayed
Clintons lie.
Hill-larry is a Clinton.
Ergo, MOST things she says are, in some measure, LIES.
And Mr. Sun came up in the East…
but… but… I’m just one of the little people like all of you….
And then let’s talk about all of Hillary’s campaign debt that she made a deal with Obama to pay off in exchange for Bill’s support.
The “little people” don’t talk about buying “houseS”. One is enough. Dead broke with no potential is a heluva lot different from dead broke with unlimited speaking fees on the horizon.
Spoken like the true (and literal!) Limousine Liberal she is.
Character indexes behavior and Hillary has a long history of deceitful behavior. Seems to be an almost involuntary reflex with both Clintons. Changing hair style/color, cosmetic surgery and a new wardrobe won’t change those underlying character issues.
Why didn’t she just sell all the furniture and silverware they stole?
Having been fascinated by the Clintons during their rule, I read this piece, knowing that everything old is new again. The woman cannot tell the truth because her whole life has been a lie but she lies so well. I have come to the conclusion that she actually believes everything she’s said.
Lets not forget William Safire’s “Blizzard of Lies” wherein he gave everyone a vocabulary lesson on the word “congenital” and included this gem, “She had good reasons to lie; she is in the longtime habit of lying; and she has never been called to account for lying herself or in suborning lying in her aides and friends.”
Clinton family business is influence peddling. Out of office, nearly-impeached Bill had enhanced political connections via Senator / pres. candidate / Secy of State Hillary to increase speaking fees and entice donors. Hillary won’t announce her decision re: running for president for as long as possible if it’s “no” to keep the dough flowing in.
But wait! Chelsea waits in the wings to, as the headline call it, go-into-the-family-business.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/04/15/will-chelsea-clinton-go-into-the-family-business/
She’d only do it to “make more of a difference in the public sector.”
Haven’t they made enough of a “difference” already? All shameful and predictable.
What do you mean “nearly” impeached? He was thoroughly impeached, the second president to be so. Like Andrew Johnson, he was not convicted by the Senate, but he was indeed impeached.
You are right. Thank you.
The problem is that Hillary is not being straight with the public.
At this point, what difference does it make?
There is an acronym for this. Something about rolling on the floor laughing my ass off. To echo the above, the Clintons would lie out of habit rather than tell the truth. Why didn’t Hillary go back to futures trading and piles of money that way?
Inside The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation … business as usual:
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/kateandrews/2013/08/14/revealing-nytimes-exposes-clinton-foundation-n166425
That link doesn’t work. Trying again:
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/kateandrews/2013/08/14/revealing-nytimes-exposes-clinton-foundation-n1664254
(Posted this further down in comments by mistake.)
Here’s Bill and Hillary “making a difference” in Haiti. The story documents Clinton graft and fraud in “management” of Haiti relief. A few quotes:
Obviously the Haitians don’t understand the “Clinton machine”- it controls the money and grants “their people” the well-paid contracts.
The State Department run at the time by Hillary Clinton played a big role here because it was the major government agency in charge of oversight of all of this. From then on if you called the State Department or IHRC and had an interest in either investment or any business you were referred to the “Clinton Foundation”.
http://patriotupdate.com/articles/haitians-heartbroken-clintons-cache-mishandling/#StoGHCyK0sYr5KZ5.99
Don’t forget the 6 billion “disappeared” from State during her tenure.
Why 1 percent of that is REAL money. Hill-larry could have considered it her rightful “bonus”…
“Dead Broke”: Hillary is using a “cultural appropriation” here, not for the sake of truth, but as ‘clarity’ for low information voters.
So, Salon.com should publish this.
…and Slate.com, too.
let’s not forget HUFFPO!
Populist pander. Gee, she’s just like the rest of us.
Walleyed and drain bamaged…???
Go ahead and joke, but this poor couple were forced to cut their domestic staff from 18 down to just 6. Hillary had to fold her own sheets on weekends, with Bill sitting nearby, forced to polish his own cuff links and belt buckles. His hands….. (oh gawd)…. his hands got stained! For several months they were unable to take full occupancy of the first class cabins on flights, and… and… had to wait their turn with everybody else for drinks and meals (shudder), like they were just any Americans.
Rags, you are one heartless m-f-er, I tell you whut.
That link doesn’t work. Here’s the good one (fingers crossed):
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/kateandrews/2013/08/14/revealing-nytimes-exposes-clinton-foundation-n1664254
When I think of “dead broke” the first thing that comes to my mind is Hillary Clinton.
Then, I think back to the days I had to scrounge change to get enough gas in the truck to get to work having not been paid in a while (contract jobs), coasting in neutral as much as possible to limit how far I had to walk home, if it all.
Yes, Somehow I made it through those times. My heart flutters with joy knowing Hillary made it through it too.
heh. Well described, Browndog. I’ve been there and done that too.
By Robert ShafferPublished November 18, 2009FoxNews.com
6.2K
Sarah Palin July 2009
Sarah Palin is no normal politician, and at the Associated Press, apparently “Going Rogue” is no normal book.
When the former Republican vice presidential candidate and former Alaska governor wrote her autobiography, the AP found a copy before its release date and assigned 11 people to fact check all 432 pages.
The AP claims Palin misstated her record with regard to travel expenses and taxpayer-funded bailouts, using statements widely reported elsewhere. But it also speculated into Palin’s motives for writing “Going Rogue: An American Life,” stating as fact that the book “has all the characteristics of a pre-campaign manifesto.”
Let’s set Mr. Peabody’s WABAC machine for 2009:
“Palin quickly hit back on a Facebook post titled “Really? Still Making Things Up?”
“Imagine that,” the post read. “11 AP reporters dedicating time and resources to tearing up the book, instead of using the time and resources to ‘fact check’ what’s going on with Sheik Mohammed’s trial, Pelosi’s health care takeover costs, Hasan’s associations, etc. Amazing.”
AP spokesman Paul Colford said the organization, with more than 4,000 employees, and 49 Pulitzer Prizes earned for asking the hard questions, has the luxury of putting multiple reporters on major stories. He confirmed 11 people worked on the story, but not all full-time. He refused to say, however, if similar number of journalists were assigned to review other political books, or if Palin has been treated differently.”
I’d say bullsh*t but that would be an insult to bulls. It amazes me that people who have no respect for themselves can garner such a following of sycophants. But she ain’t in no ways tired.
Seems like an enterprising blogger ought to pull out the Clintons “post White House” tax returns and trek through the public record of how the Clintons “lived large” while being “dead broke”.
I don’t think it means what she thinks it means.
She thinks her incompetence in managing her $ will make us want to vote for her in order to manage ours?
Hubris
It would be good if somebody printed up Hillary’s proven and indisputable lies and posted them everywhere – both in poster form and on TV. Start with her absurd lie about ducking bullets in Bosnia and emphasizing her “dead broke” claim by posting her book deal money at the end of 2000. Include everything that can be researched easily on the net. Maybe then, even those who blindly support her will start to see the light.
Her non-accomplishments in the Senate and as Sec/State don’t seem to have an effect on supporters, but things that cannot be denied or declared as “opinion” may make a big difference.
Given the state of our country, and given that we are looking at 2.5 years more of the downward trajectory, I’m thinking the winner of the 2016 presidential election is currently unknown or essentially unknown and fully off the radar of 90% of the electorate, regardless of party, GOP or Dem.
2016 will not be a good time for any candidate too connected to DC and too long in that elitist culture, again, whether GOP or Dem.
Anything she says is automatically weighed against the sincerity of her pronouncement that she “was dodging gunfire” at the airport in Bosnia during one of the FLOTUS
boondogglesstate visits when Bubba was president.To call this woman a serial liar is a direct insult to all serial liars, everywhere.
Don’t forget how she claimed she’d been named after Sir Edmund Hillary, famed for climbing Mt. Everest… except… yeah… he didn’t make that climb till years after her birth.
Let us not forget the over a million and a half dollars in the Clinton Legal Defense Fund contributed in thousand dollar bundles from contributors which vanished into their pockets and never was even considered to be returned as they rolled to their 200 million dollar post-presidential payday.
I seem to recall them signing a deal, leasing the apartment over their carriage house at the NY house, to the Secret Service to house their detail. I also seem to recall that the rent for that was more than the mortgage payment for the entire property.
Do people not think that this comment and the out-of-touch attitude behind it, will spell doom for Hillary’s presidential ambitions? It is one thing to say she was in debt, another thing to say “dead broke” when the post-Presidential pension is so substantial (200k is the figure I have read).
The interesting thing is how she responded to the initial question when she is asked about the large sums of money she is charged for making speeches. I imagine a lot of people would have bristled and said something along the lines of “this is a capitalist country and there is nothing wrong with making money”. But Hillary cannot say that because of ideology, so she makes this unforced error that reveals an incredible lack of empathy for the reality of what it is like to leave a job when you don’t have a pension and you don’t know where your next job is coming from; experiences that are a basic part of life for millions of Americans. Romney who genuinely cared about all Americans was hounded for an unfortunate remark taken out of context that appeared to show insensitivity. This remark of Hillary’s has full context so we can clearly see the petulance and the callousness of her attitude. There is no doubt that she wants to be President but is there a Republican who can successfully beat her?