How Did the Clintons Become So Rich?
The real scandal is not that the former president and first lady are so wealthy, but how they got that wealthy.
By
Zaid Jilani
. . .In 1999, Bill Clinton made
repealing the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act — which separated commercial and investment banking — a priority. He commanded a
bipartisan push in repealing the law, which was primarily advocated for by Wall Street lobbyists. Not long after his pen hit the paper to repeal the law, Citigroup, a top beneficiary of the repeal,
recruited Clinton’s Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin to join as an executive at the firm. Rubin went on to be one of Citigroup’s
highest-paid officials, pulling in $115 million in pay from 1999 and 2008.
While Rubin was made rich from Wall Street deregulation, his boss went on the lecture circuit. In February of 2001, Clinton had been out of the White House for less than a month when he gave his first paid speech, to none other than Morgan Stanley — another beneficiary of and
advocate for Clinton’s Wall Street deregulation — for
$125,000. His next address in Manhattan was at Credit Suisse First Boston, which gave him an additional $125,000. His paid speaking arrangements took him around the world, from Canada to Hong Kong, speaking to a variety of interest groups with major public policy interests, including the American Israel Chamber of Commerce and the investment banking giant CLSA. Clinton had also made passing the
North American Free Trade Agreement a priority during his presidency, so it is no surprise that
major Canadian firms such as the Jim Pattison Group ($150,000) were happy to pay to hear a few remarks from him as well.
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