The Clintons’ lucrative speech-giving side gigs have emerged as major issues for the Democratic front-runner on the campaign trail. | Getty Bill Clinton earned $5 million from speeches last year

Bill Clinton raked in $5 million in paid speeches last year, according to his wife’s most recent personal financial disclosure released Tuesday night, including $2.7 million after Hillary Clinton announced her presidential run.

Four days after the former secretary of state announced online last April that she would mount a second bid for the White House, Bill Clinton was paid $300,000 for a speech in front of the Oracle Corporation in Rancho Mirage, California, the disclosure shows. Over the past year, he has also given speeches to groups such as the Wyndham Hotel Group in Las Vegas; the private equity firm Apollo Management Holdings; UBS Wealth Management; and the Texas China Business Council, among other groups.


The Clintons’ lucrative speech-giving side gigs have emerged as major issues for the Democratic front-runner on the campaign trail. Hillary Clinton has refused to release transcripts of her speeches in front of Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs.

The disclosure also showed Hillary Clinton earned more than $5 million in royalties from her 2014 memoir, “Hard Choices,” and between $15,000 and $50,000 in royalties from her 2004 memoir, “Living History.”

The Clinton campaign released the candidate’s latest personal financial disclosure, which covers January 2015 through the present, ahead of Wednesday’s Federal Election Commission deadline. Bernie Sanders filed for an extension, and Donald Trump on Tuesday released a statement boasting that his latest report, which will be out Wednesday, shows “tremendous cash flow” and income in excess of half a billion dollars.

But Clinton’s campaign used the legally required financial disclosure release to keep the heat on Trump to release his tax returns, which so far he has refused to do.

"Despite Donald Trump's boasting, submitting his Personal Financial Disclosure form is no breakthrough for transparency,” said Clinton spokeswoman Christina Reynolds. “It is a legal requirement for anyone running for President. The true test for Donald Trump is whether he will adhere to the precedent followed by every presidential candidate in the modern era and make his tax returns available, as Hillary Clinton has done."

Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon hammered the message home more succinctly on Trump’s favored medium, Twitter: “Hey Donald,” Fallon tweeted, “your PFD is no BFD. Your tax returns are what count.”

