Clinton Debts Paid Off, Report Shows

Erasing a lingering financial burden, former President Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) in 2004 paid the last legal debts that arose from investigations of them during their White House years, a financial statement released Tuesday showed.

In her annual Senate financial disclosure statement, Sen. Clinton reported that the couple had paid the legal fees -- which for 2003 they listed as $500,000 to $1 million -- for their defenses in the investigations.

“They are both pleased that it’s been paid,” said Jim Kennedy, a spokesman for the former president.

Their links to Arkansas real estate transactions in the 1980s that became known as the Whitewater controversy led to a investigations and the eventual impeachment of President Clinton stemming from an extramarital affair. Neither Clinton was charged with a crime directly related to the Whitewater deal, and the Senate acquitted President Clinton in his impeachment case.

In 2001, the Clintons’ legal fees were reported to have reached at least $11.3 million. A legal defense fund paid some of that amount, and the federal government paid a small portion.

Since they left the White House in January 2001, both Clintons have earned millions of dollars on memoirs they wrote.

In the new financial statements, many senators reported earnings from advances and royalties on fiction and nonfiction books.

But Sen. Clinton earned the most in 2004 -- about $2.38 million in royalties from her autobiography, “Living History,” which was published in 2003. It has sold more than 3 million copies worldwide.

Bill Clinton also received income from his autobiography, “My Life,” which was published in 2004, and from lectures, according to Sen. Clinton’s financial statement.

Senate rules required Sen. Clinton to report only that her husband earned more than $1,000 last year for his book, but news reports have said he received a $10-million advance.

The former president also earned $875,000 from six speeches last year, down from the nearly $4.4 million he collected on the lecture circuit in 2003 and the $9.5 million he received in 2002, according to Sen. Clinton’s past statements.

Kennedy, the spokesman for Bill Clinton, noted that the former president spent much of last year writing his book and recuperating from heart surgery performed in September.

The former president, he said, is “more in demand than ever, but most requests have to be turned down.”

The Clintons reported two assets valued from $5 million to $25 million, one in a Citibank account and the other in a blind trust.

The disclosure rules require lawmakers only to report assets and liabilities within broad ranges. They are not required to list their annual salary, which for most senators was $158,100 in 2004 (it was increased to $162,100 on Jan. 1). Nor do they have to report the value of personal residences.

Financial disclosure reports for House members become available today.

As they have in past years, the reports released Tuesday confirmed that the Senate remains largely a club of the wealthy.

At least 46 of the 94 senators who filed the reports listed assets that qualified them as millionaires.

Six senators, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), asked for extensions from the Senate Ethics Committee.

Among the wealthiest senators was Democrat Jon Corzine of New Jersey, a former chief executive of Goldman Sachs Group, who listed assets valued from $85 million to $261.5 million.

Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) was the wealthiest of the Senate’s leaders. Frist, a heart surgeon who earns $175,700 in salary for his Senate leadership post, reported more than a dozen blind trusts that he used to manage his family’s stock assets. They were reported as worth more than $14 million.

The filings ranged from the voluminous -- Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) filed 200 pages of assets and Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) filed nearly 70 pages -- to the two-page filing of Sen. John E. Sununu (R-N.H.).

Feinstein’s 133-page report last year was among the thickest -- putting her and her investment banker husband’s worth at more than $35 million. She is due to file her 2004 report by July 15.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) submitted a brief statement that listed her major asset as a blind trust valued from $1 million to $5 million. She listed no major liabilities.

She also reported a $15,938 advance payment from Chronicle Books of San Francisco for a suspense novel she is writing titled “A Time to Run.” The book is about an activist senator battling conservative ideologues in Washington.

The reports listed other offbeat outside earnings for senators.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) reported payments for the production of a made-for-television movie based on his book “Faith of My Fathers” and for his cameo appearance in the film “The Wedding Crashers.” He donated the money to charity.

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.), a Hall of Fame baseball pitcher, raised $64,000 for his foundation, which contributes to charity, by signing autographs. He collected a $20,000 salary from the Jim Bunning Foundation.

The reports listed trips some senators took to destinations including the Bahamas; Cancun, Mexico; and Barcelona, Spain, paid for by trade organizations, think tanks and other groups.

Such travel has received greater scrutiny since news organizations this year probed overseas trips taken by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and questioned whether a lobbyist had paid for some of them, which would violate House rules. DeLay has said he did nothing wrong.

Many legally financed trips by lawmakers are routinely attacked by critics as junkets. But the lawmakers say such trips provide important learning opportunities for them. And they say having outside organizations foot the bill saves taxpayer money.

Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, was one of the more widely traveled senators in 2004, taking several trips paid for by the Aspen Institute, a think tank. The institute paid for trips by Lugar or his wife to Geneva, Honolulu, Cancun, Barcelona and Venice, Italy.

The Aspen Institute also paid for Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) and his wife to spend six days in the Bahamas, where they attended a conference on Brazil.

Sen. Deborah Stabenow (D-Mich.) took a trip funded by the Aspen Institute to Barcelona and another to Vail, Colo., that was paid for by the American Sugar Alliance. She also traveled to Mackinac Island in Michigan on a trip paid for by the Detroit Regional Chamber Leadership Policy Conference.

The German Marshall Fund, a nonpartisan public policy institute whose website says it is dedicated to “promoting greater cooperation and understanding between the United States and Europe,” paid for Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and his wife to visit Munich, Germany.

Two energy companies -- Public Service Co. of New Mexico and Exelon Corp. -- and the Edison Electric Institute, an electric utility association, paid for lodging and travel for Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) to speak at a conference in Arizona.

Domenici, chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, was among the senators who has written books -- in his case, “A Brighter Tomorrow: Fulfilling the Promise of Nuclear Energy.” He will begin receiving a royalty of 10% from net sales beginning June 30, according to his disclosure statements.

Times staff writers Steve Bodzin, Chuck Neubauer and Walter F. Roche Jr. contributed to this report.

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The numbers

Details of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s financial disclosure:

Earned income: $2,378,297

Major assets: Bank account, $5 million-$25 million; blind trust, $5 million-$25 million

Major sources of unearned income: Interest from blind trust, $100,001-$1 million

Major liabilities: None

Gifts: None

Source: Associated Press

Los Angeles Times