Clinton Foundation: Oh, We Made Additional $12-26 Million From Speeches Given By the Former First Family

Matt Vespa | May 22, 2015 7:13 PM

So, the Clintons have been making some big money since January of 2014. They’ve made $25 million worth of speaking fees since then, and Guy noted that after they left the White House; Bill began earning $24,000 a day in the first few months after leaving the presidency. But, remember they were “dead broke,” or something. Now, the Clinton Foundation has disclosed an additional $12-26 million in revenue from donations, $12 million of which came from the former first family's speaking engagements. Nevertheless, this attempt at transparency is overshadowed by the rather disconcerting allegation that Clinton staffers at the State Department might have blocked some FOIA requests (via Politico):

Hillary Clinton, former President Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea Clinton brought in more than $12 million in speaking fees since 2002 that was donated directly to their family foundation, covering a a total of 97 speeches across the U.S. and around the world, according to data made public for the first time Thursday night.

The new list of paid speeches gives a more complete financial picture of the Clintons’ high-dollar public appearances. A personal financial disclosure filed last week by Hillary Clinton shows that the couple made over $25 million in personal income on public speeches since the beginning of 2014.

The release of appearances where fees went directly to the family charity offered no explanation for how the Clintons decided which speeches should go to the foundation and which to the Clintons’ own pockets.

Over at Hot Air, Ed Morrissey wrote that the Clinton Foundation listed these speaking fees as revenue–and didn’t disclose them per an agreement with the Obama administration:

There are a couple of notable entries on the new set of books released by the foundation. Carlos Slim, the Mexican billionaire who owns a considerable interest in the New York Times, paid Hillary Clinton as much as $500K for one speech through his Telmex Foundation. Qatar First Bank paid Bill Clinton a similar amount. The government of Qatar also arranged for another Bill payday in the same range at the Brookings Institution for the US Islamic World Forum.

Needless to say, the two instances of government involvement in the Clinton Foundation are more than problematic during the tenure of Hillary at State, especially Qatar. Nominally a US ally, Qatar was until last summer the main diplomatic partner of Hamas, classified as a terrorist organization by State. What is the Secretary of State doing by accepting cash from Qatar through a spouse while representing the US as its top diplomat in that highly sensitive and precarious relationship? What would Israel (among others in the region) think about the direction of US policy while someone who’s getting money indirectly from the then-partner of Hamas?

In a sane world, this kind of corruption would be disqualifying