Hillary Clinton was paid millions by tech industry for speeches

Hillary Rodham Clinton has an unusually close financial ties with a broad array of industries that have issues before the government and paid millions of dollars to her and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, in the months preceding the launch of her presidential campaign.

Disclosure documents filed by Hillary Clinton last week revealed that the couple have earned about $25 million for delivering 104 paid speeches since January 2014. While Bill Clinton’s lucrative speaking career since leaving the White House in 2001 has been well documented, the new disclosures offer the first public accounting of Hillary Clinton’s paid addresses since she stepped down as secretary of state. And they illustrate how the Clintons have personally profited by drawing on the same network of supporters who have backed their political campaigns and philanthropic efforts -- while those supporters have gained entree to a potential future president. Silicon Valley is one place where those overlapping interests come together. Out of the $11.7 million that Hillary Clinton has made delivering 51 speeches since January 2014, $3.2 million came from the technology industry. Several of the companies that paid Clinton to address their employees also have senior leaders who have been early and avid supporters of her presidential bid.