Politics

Beaumont Health Paid Hillary Clinton Mega Bucks for Speech

August 11, 2015, 7:24 AM

Featured_screen_shot_2015-07-08_at_7.27.28_am_17576
Hillary Clinton

Forget the old expression "talk is cheap."

Detroit News columnist Laura Berman writes that in November 2013, Beaumont Health System paid $305,000 to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for a speech at a private dinner at the Westin Book-Cadillac in downtown Detroit. The speech was sponsored by the Beaumont Foundation for its big donors as a way of saying thanks. The media was not allowed to attend.

The fee is in Clinton's tax records she released July 31, Berman reports.

Berman reports it wasn't a fundraiser and was paid for  “through sponsorships and ticket sales,” according to a Beaumont Health spokesperson.

Even in Clinton dollars, it was a lavish night out for good friends of the Beaumont Health System: Her standard rate in 2013, after leaving her Cabinet post that January, was $225,000 for a speech. That’s what Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, UBS Wealth Management and the National Association of Realtors, among others, paid.

Beaumont (which merged with another hospital system and is now called Beaumont Health) paid more steeply for her appearance than any other organization except Chicago’s Jewish Federation, which kicked in $400,000. (In an email, Maryanne MacLeod, a Beaumont Health spokeswoman, said Clinton’s figure was too high but declined to elaborate.)

Clinton donates most of her speaking fees to charities.

Berman quotes a consultant for local charities who says that the Clinton fee may not be that bad considering all the money donors give. But the columnist concludes:

My guess is that at least some of Beaumont’s charitable donors will be taken aback by the true cost of basking in the Clinton glow. Fundraising has its own rules; so does politics. Hillary Clinton’s document release in July afforded us an unexpectedly naked glimpse of two privileged worlds: politics and philanthropy. Think about it the next time a charity gives you a mouse pad.


Read more:  The Detroit News


Leave a Comment:

Photo Of The Day