Politics
How the Clintons Went from ‘Dead Broke’ to Rich: Bill Earned $104.9 Million for Speeches
Former President Bill Clinton speaks during the Civil Rights Summit on Wednesday, April 9, 2014, in Austin, Texas. Clinton used the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act to criticize efforts in several states to restrict voting, saying they threaten to roll back half a century of progress. (AP Photo/Jack Plunkett)
Philip Rucker, Tom Hamburger, and Alexander Becker, THE WASHINGTON POST
WASHINGTON (The Washington Post)—Over seven frenetic days, Bill Clinton addressed corporate executives in Switzerland and Denmark, an investors’ group in Sweden and a cluster of business and political leaders in Austria. The former president wrapped up his European trip in the triumphant Spanish Hall at Prague Castle, where he shared his thoughts on energy to a Czech business summit.
His pay: $1.4 million.
That lucrative week in May 2012 offers a glimpse into the way Clinton has leveraged his global popularity into a personal fortune. Starting just two weeks after exiting the Oval Office, Clinton has delivered hundreds of paid speeches, lifting a family that was “dead broke,” as wife Hillary Rodham Clinton phrased it earlier this month, to a point of such extraordinary wealth that it is now seen as a potential political liability if she runs for president in 2016.
