No ‘Artful Smear’: Clintons Were Paid $153 Million in Speaking Fees, Analysis Shows

By Lauren McCauley / Common Dreams

There has been a lot of talk in recent weeks about the speaking fees paid to presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and an analysis published Saturday sheds some light on exactly how much Wall Street and other major corporate powers ponied up for the former Secretary of State and her husband, President Bill Clinton.

$153 million, CNN concludes, is the amount the power couple raked in between February 2001 and the launch of Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid in May 2015. What’s more, the Clintons received an average pay of $210,795 for each of the 729 addresses given during that time period.

During Thursday’s Democratic debate, Clinton accused her primary challenger Bernie Sanders of an “artful smear” because of his repeated references to her exorbitant speaking fees, particularly those paid by banking giants such as Goldman Sachs.

According to the analysis, Clinton collected at least $1.8 million for at least eight speeches given to big banks, while the pair earned a total of roughly $7.7 million for at least 39 speeches to Wall Street.

Clinton has glossed over the content of these speeches. When probed by the moderators during the MSNBC debate as to whether she’d release the transcripts, she said she’d “look into it.”

Meanwhile, over 11,000 people have signed a petition calling for the public release of the transcripts and videos of the speeches made to Goldman Sachs. Citing reports that Clinton “used those speeches to make clear that she would let bankers off the hook for their crimes and abuses,” the petition asserts the comments made behind closed doors “is at odds with what she publicly tells the rest of us.”