Stay out of politics!!
Sorry!
That's the coin of the realm.
"Listen, I'm a politician which means I'm a cheat and a liar, and when I'm not kissing babies I'm stealing their lollipops. But it also means I keep my options open."
--- National Security Advisor "Jeffrey Pelt", speaking to "Jack Ryan" in The Hunt For Red October.
Of course, you can enjoy the entire "Hunt For Red October" clip in its entirety if you like.
The issue of Bill and Hill trading political favors for profit, however, is way overblown and riddled with false accusations.
Of course they peddled their political mojo for tidy sums, just like every other politico known to man.
The accusations leveled at them, on the other hand, largely sound like a cheap dime store pulp novel.
Are they a hundred percent honest? Highly doubtful.
Are they the slit-eyed global villains as described by their detractors?
Absurd.
After their stint in the White House they quite naturally translated their status as highly sought after consultants, just like every other successful politician ever has. The days of former presidents living out the rest of their lives in penury are long gone.
Garfield, Harrison, Grant, Jefferson and Truman all died broke. Truman was one of the first ex-presidents to finally receive an annual pension of $25,000.00, which helped keep him afloat.
But Jefferson, one of the wealthiest men in America, emerged from the presidency flat broke and never recovered, leaving ZERO for his acknowledged daughter and less than zero for the six children he fathered with ex-slave Sally Hemmings.
Moral of the story to all who came after was to ensure a life of stability and security and to acquire some wealth.
By the way, by law, former presidents are entitled to a pension, staff and office expenses, medical care or health insurance, and Secret Service protection. Former presidents receive a lifetime pension of $219,200 per year.
If one properly invests half of that, for a period of twenty years, it's easy to imagine just that alone yielding a handsome nest egg and if one adds in the hundreds of thousands that both of them get paid for private speaking engagements, then realizing a net worth in multiple millions is not difficult to imagine either.
When they left the White House, the Clintons were technically in debt due to Bill's legal expenditures.
Over the next 10 years Bill alone earned $100+ million in speaking engagement fees alone.
In 2001 he was paid the biggest book advance of all time, $15 million, for what became the best selling "My Life".
To date Bill and Hillary have earned more than $250 million from speaking engagements, book advances/royalties, investment income and consulting fees.
Sure beats eking it out in your mother-in-law's home and living off a paltry pension with a Medicare card the way "Give Em Hell Harry" had to till his dying day.
