Hillary Clinton is said to be buoyant over her prospects to become the next U.S. President, as Republicans feud over Donald Trump’s disruptive campaign and Sen. Bernie Sanders fails to articulate a clear foreign policy, but perhaps the biggest obstacle still confronting the ex-Secretary of State is her own record as a beneficiary of rich and powerful corporate interests.
“The truth is, you can’t change a corrupt system by taking its money,” says a Sanders’s television commercial. And Clinton has left herself open to that charge by profiting off her government experience, racking up $11.8 million in 51 speaking fees in the 14-month period from January 2014 to March 2015 before she became an official candidate for President, according to disclosure records.
For speeches usually lasting between 30 minutes and one hour, Clinton was paid from $100,000 to $335,000, an average around $230,000. Many of her paid speeches were delivered to Wall Street, Big Pharma, Tech and other industries with interests in influencing government policies.