Hillary Rodham Clinton offered an explanation for her expensive speaking fees in an interview, saying that the hundreds of thousands of dollars she charges to speak at colleges doesn’t really go to her.
Instead, she told Ann Compton of ABC News, it all goes to her family’s charity, the Clinton Foundation.
“All of the fees have been donated to the Clinton Foundation for it to continue its life-changing and life-saving work. So it goes from a foundation at a university to another foundation,” Mrs. Clinton told Ms. Compton.
The former first lady is leading in polls for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, although she hasn’t said she will definitely run. She reportedly charges around $200,000 or more for each speaking engagement.
Students at the University of Nevada Las Vegas plan to protest an appearance by Mrs. Clinton if she does not give her $225,000 speaking fee back to the university, where tuition and fees are scheduled to increase.
She is scheduled to speak at the school in October.
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Mrs. Clinton made no indication that she would meet the students’ demands, saying her speeches bring ideas to people across the country that will help fight income inequality.
“It’s been my experience that they’re not worried about my speaking or my household; they’re worried about their own,” Mrs. Clinton said in the interview. “And that’s the kind of debate I think I’m furthering as I go around the country speaking.”
The Clintons have continued to take fire over their finances in the past month after Mrs. Clinton said that she and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, were “dead broke” when they left the White House in 2001.
Mrs. Clinton is traveling overseas to promote her new memoir, “Hard Choices.”
• Kellan Howell can be reached at khowell@washingtontimes.com.
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