Clinton Family Continues Raking In Personal Cash From Firms That Lobbied Hillary Clinton’s State Department

Hillary Clinton was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees last year by two business entities that previously made personal payments to her husband Bill Clinton while they lobbied the Hillary Clinton-run U.S. State Department. Altogether, Hillary Clinton was paid $2.2 million in 2014 by organizations that lobbied the State Department while she was secretary of state, according to the latest financial-disclosure form she filed with the Federal Election Commission.

While Hillary Clinton has been seeking the Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential nomination, she has faced repeated questions about whether her family’s acceptance of millions of dollars paid by corporate interests -- through personal payments to the Clintons and contributions to the family’s Clinton Foundation -- had any influence on her policy decisions at the State Department. Those questions intensified last month after International Business Times first revealed that former President Bill Clinton had accepted more than $2.5 million in speaking fees from 13 companies and trade associations that lobbied the State Department while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. Some of the business entities that were paying Bill Clinton personal money and lobbying Hillary Clinton’s State Department received lucrative contracts from the department.

The financial-disclosure form filed by Clinton Friday revealed her family has been paid more than $25 million in speaking fees since 2014. Among the entities paying her were Salesforce.com Inc. and the Biotechnology Industry Organization. Those two outfits paid her a combined total of $785,000 in 2014, and they previously paid Bill Clinton personal money while they were lobbying Hillary Clinton’s State Department.

The new financial-disclosure form also shows Hillary Clinton was paid $325,000 by Cisco Systems Inc. last summer. IBTimes first reported in April that the Clinton Foundation accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from Cisco, as the company was given State Department contracts. The Clinton-run State Department also gave Cisco a human-rights award, even as human-rights watchdog groups slammed the company for its work with the Chinese government as that regime repressed dissidents.

Before Friday’s disclosures about firms that paid the Clintons in 2014, the Daily Mail reported Hillary Clinton netted $400,000 from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. for two speeches in October 2013. The banking giant lobbied Hillary Clinton’s State Department in 2011, shortly after paying Bill Clinton $200,000 for a speaking engagement.