Hillary Clinton memoir / We 'were broke' after presidency

Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton memoir: we 'were broke' after presidency

Launching her memoir, Clinton reveals debt caused by Chelsea's education and legal bills relating to Lewinsky affair

Associated Press in Washington
Tuesday 10 June 2014 09.07 BST

Hillary Clinton's family was "dead broke" and saddled with legal bills when she and her husband, Bill, left the White House, the former first lady has revealed.

"We came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt," Clinton told ABC News at the start of a tour to promote her memoir, Hard Choices, which is released on Tuesday. "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."

After leaving the White House, Clinton represented New York in the Senate and her husband earned a fortune in speaking fees, but they faced large legal bills, possibly as high as $10.6m, incurred during investigations into Whitewater and the Monica Lewinsky affair.

Republicans pointed out that she received an $8m (£4.7m) book advance for her 2003 memoir and said the comments reflected her insulation from the daily problems of average Americans.

"I think she's been out of touch with average people for a long time," said Republican national committee chairman Reince Priebus. "Whether she was flat broke or not is not the issue. It's tone deaf to average people."

By 2009, when Hillary Clinton was preparing to join President Barack Obama's administration as secretary of state, the Clintons' wealth was between $10m and $50m.

Clinton's defenders said the family had been generous to charities and that some of her speeches had been delivered for free or to raise money for good causes.

During the 2008 campaign, Mrs Clinton released tax forms that showed a total of $1.1m in book proceeds went to charities between 2000 and early 2008 and that the Clintons gave away $10m. Between 2001 and 2006, $6m of that was to the Clinton Foundation, which the former president established after his presidency.

THE GUARDIAN