Chelsea Clinton's gab a gift, too: Fee is $75,000

Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation Vice Chairman Chelsea Clinton has jumped into the family business of speechmaking. The money from her speeches, which are on behalf of the foundation, goes directly to the foundation.
Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation Vice Chairman Chelsea Clinton has jumped into the family business of speechmaking. The money from her speeches, which are on behalf of the foundation, goes directly to the foundation.

There is a new Clinton paid to deliver speeches -- Chelsea, the former first daughter -- and she is commanding as much as $75,000 per appearance.

Aides stressed that while Bill and Hillary Clinton often address trade groups and Wall Street bankers, Chelsea Clinton, now 34, focuses on organizations whose goals are in line with the work of the family's philanthropic organization, the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation. Organizers said her star power helped sell tickets and raise money.

And unlike her parents' talks, Chelsea Clinton's speeches "are on behalf of the Clinton Foundation, and 100 percent of the fees are remitted directly to the foundation," said her spokesman, Kamyl Bazbaz, adding that "the majority of Chelsea's speeches are unpaid."

The Harry Walker Agency, the firm that represents her parents' engagements, handles Clinton's talks on behalf of the family foundation.

The family speechmaking business is a lucrative one and has generated more than $100 million for her parents over the past decade as they hopscotched the globe. Their fees range from $200,000 to $700,000 per appearance, and Bill Clinton alone earned $17 million last year giving speeches.

Chelsea Clinton has avoided the contention that lately has accompanied her mother's speeches, particularly at public universities. Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and a potential presidential candidate, said she also donates her university fees to the family foundation, but critics have said that as taxpayer-supported institutions, the schools should put that money to better use.

In New York on Monday, Assemblyman Kieran Michael Lalor, a Republican, called on the University of Buffalo to disclose how much it paid Hillary Clinton, who spoke there in October. She will get $225,000 for a coming speech at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, and the University of California, Los Angeles, paid Clinton $300,000 to speak in March.

University administrators have said that private donations cover the fees. "No revenues from tuition or state support were put toward the speaking fee," said Jean-Paul Renaud, a UCLA spokesman

This fall, after the tour on behalf of her latest book slows down, Hillary Clinton will once again hit the speaking-engagement circuit, including an address in August at the Nexenta OpenSDx Summit in San Francisco for software storage professionals.

Political rivals have said the six-figure fees make Clinton out of touch with average working Americans. America Rising, an anti-Clinton super political action committee, has called on the Clinton Foundation to release additional information about how much of the money is donated and how it is being used by the foundation.

Chelsea Clinton was once doggedly averse to the attention of the news media, but she has taken on a larger public role in recent years. In April, when she said that she was expecting her first child with her husband, Marc Mezvinsky, she announced the news while onstage with her mother at an event related to the Clinton Foundation's No Ceilings initiative to help women and girls.

Clinton and her parents have devoted much of the past year to building up the family foundation's endowment, and speaking engagements have been a part of that.

In August, they likely will host another fundraiser in the Hamptons in New York where they will spend their vacation. Bazbaz said Chelsea Clinton was not paid for her role as the organization's vice chairman. She does get a salary at NBC News (of $600,000 a year, before she recently switched to a month-to-month contract, according to Politico) where she became a special correspondent in 2011.

Chelsea Clinton's speeches focus on causes like eradicating waterborne diseases, and she dispenses lessons picked up from her family. ("Life's not about what happens to you, it's about what you do with what happens to you," she likes to say).

The speaking engagements often include question-and-answer sessions in which she fields inquiries about growing up in the White House and her mother's plans for 2016. Chelsea Clinton often says she is "unapologetically biased" when it comes to her mother, and that "my crystal ball is no clearer than yours" on whether she will run for president again.

The cost to book Chelsea Clinton surpasses that of speakers with longer resumes, like Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor and a potential Republican rival to Hillary Clinton in 2016. He makes an estimated $50,000 per speech.

Colin Powell and Madeleine Albright, both former secretaries of state, are also in the $50,000 range, said one person who has booked speakers but who could not discuss private contracts for attribution.

A Section on 07/10/2014

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