Are Hillary's big speaking fees being used to help fund her campaign?

[snagglepuss]

snip

The degree to which Clinton is seeking to self-fund her campaign has so far gotten virtually no attention from the media and pales in comparison to the $25 million Donald Trump has loaned his campaign.

Still, “the amount of money is striking,” said Lawrence Jacobs, the director of the Center for the Study of Politics at the Hubert Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. “It seems to be an important piece of the puzzle. One question [about Clinton’s speeches] is why she would take the risk of taking so much money from Wall Street and other interest groups. Now we see the full picture. It appears she needed some of the cash to finance her campaign.”


snip


While Clinton’s campaign committee has raised a total of $159.9 million so far, the candidate’s own contributions make her by far the biggest source of funds, exceeding the amounts she has raised from partners and employees of major law firms like Paul Weiss ($232,684) and DLA Piper $225,363), as well as the executives and employees of major companies like Google ($224,817) and Morgan Stanley ($222,177), according to figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

That could prove awkward for a candidate who has portrayed herself as a campaign reformer and touted the importance of small donors in financing her candidacy. And the timing of some of Clinton’s speeches — especially when matched up against the payments to her campaign — raise questions about whether her lucrative speech fees effectively amount to a “pass through” of money from special interest groups to help bankroll her candidacy, according to Jacobs and other ethics advocates.



Read more at

https://www.yahoo.com/news/are-hillarys-big-speaking-fees-being-used-to-help-205257476.html

[Jack Bone]

1. seems highly unethical to me

[geek tragedy]

2. because they were total paupers before those speaking fees began rolling in

(insert dead broke joke here)

[BernieforPres2016]

3. I find that article kind of nonsensical

Hillary has put less than $600,000 of her own money into her campaign when she made about $10 million from speaking fees in one year and between she and Bill they made over $150 million in 15 years post Presidency.

Knowing the Clintons, my guess is the money she put in the campaign is a loan and it will be paid back from the campaign to her with money from contributors. Despite all the money they've made, President Obama raised money in 2012 to retire the last $245,000 of debt remaining from Hillary's 2008 campaign against him. I guess the Clintons couldn't afford to pay it. After all, Bill says he has to keep speaking around the world to pay their bills.

The issue with Hillary and Wall Street money is that she has taken millions of dollars personally from them and also has taken their donations to the Clinton Foundation.

[IdaBriggs]

4. The camping one seems very strange.

Non-profit organization has $2.1 million budget, and they paid her 10% of it for a 30 minute "when I was a Girl Scout" speech, and then a 30 minute Q-n-A.

Huh?

Then you realize she was invited because of a million dollar donor who also happens to be a Democratic big wig.

Not sure I see the article clearly "proves" the "help me pay my bills" tie in; it originally looks like she has only self funded $600k, but later it talks about $1.2M - the whole article is a bit confusing.

[Jack Bone]

5. Michael Isikoff hits another one...

Out of the park..

Kicked for the night shift

[reformist2]

6. One wonders how much money she has really received from ordinary people - i.e., the 99%.

I'd be willing to bet it's about only 1/3 of her $100,000,000+.