Sticking to her claim that she and husband Bill were “dead broke” when they left the White House, Hillary Clinton told German magazine Der Spiegel they were in deep debt because of “relentless persecution of my husband and myself.”
The Weekly Standard reported on the magazine’s interview with Hillary Clinton. Notably, Clinton responded to a question about her previous assertion that she and the former president were “dead broke.” She said, “When we came out of the White House, we were deeply in debt because of all the legal bills that we owed because of the relentless persecution of my husband and myself, and he had to work unbelievably hard to pay off every single penny of every debt we owed. And we did.”
Astonishingly, the former first lady and secretary of state insisted that she and the 42nd president of the United States could not get a loan from a bank for a home mortgage: “if you were to go back and look at the amount of money that we owed, we couldn’t even get a mortgage on a house by ourselves.”
Her comments stretch credulity given the couple’s prestige and the exorbitant speaking fees and book royalties that they were earning at the time. Former President Bill Clinton alone has made over $100 million in speaking fees since he left office. Moreover, according to the Washington Post, all of the Clintons’ debt was erased just four years after their leaving the White House. In her disclosure statement when being approved for Secretary of State, the Clinton assets were estimated as high as $50 million.
What’s more, the Clintons did indeed purchase two homes after leaving office. They bought a $1.7 million mansion in Chappaqua, NY prior to her run for senator in 2000 and later a $2.85 million mansion on Embassy Row in Washington, D.C., replete with five bedrooms and six baths.
Since Hillary professes that they couldn’t get a mortgage, maybe she is suggesting that the deprived couple just laid down straight cash for them. Yet, according to Pollitifact.com, the Clintons purchased the Chappaqua, NY residence, putting down $855,000, and secured a $1.9 million mortgage from Citibank right before they left the White House.