Hillary Clinton was certainly a diva on the speaking circuit — requesting private jets and Presidential suites from cash-strapped public universities who had to, in turn, raise tuition. But revelations about her husband Bill Clinton’s demands show that he completely eclipses her lavish lifestyle.
According to documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times, through a Republican National Committee Freedom of Information Act request, Bill Clinton simply couldn’t bear to travel the 70 miles from San Francisco to UC Davis by car or rail, and UC Davis had to have a donor step in to fly him down — and by private jet, not commercial, like the little people.
And while staying at San Francisco’s luxurious Fairmont Hotel for a separate speech, Clinton racked up $700 in expenses for a single dinner with one other person (how very 1%), and $1,400 in telephone charges.
There’s no information in the correspondence that indicates who, exactly, Clinton was calling to rack up such a massive phone bill, but he certainly wasn’t calling anyone local. He must have been saving up all of his international and 900-number conversations for the Fairmont, because in the days of cell phones, hotel extensions seem almost superfluous..
When confronted with the outrageous expenses — all of which he charged to his host — Clinton’t team simply responded that no one had complained about the former President’s lofty requirements before.
But if you think both UC Davis and the Foothill-Deanza Community College District were getting their money’s worth for the speeches, well, Clinton demanded more than any speaker either college had ever encountered, including former President Ronald Reagan, and former British PM Margaret Thatcher. Though Foothill-Deanza’s speaker series organizers routinely offered their speakers $60,000, Clinton refused to do the speech for less than six figures, finally settling on $100,000 for the speech (plus all those expenses).
Organizers also seemed to assume that Clinton would be forthright and open with their invited guests, as the speaker series encouraged. Instead, organizers were battered with a series of edits and “suggested questions,” for the former President, all of which were total softballs.
Even Clinton’s wife didn’t require her staff to pre-screen the organizers’ questions. Organizers were appalled: “He is the only person I can think of that required . It has never happened before or since,” they told the LA Times.
When the event moderator eventually asked Clinton a tough question about his pardon of Mark Rich, a Clinton crony freaked out, came out from backstage, and told the moderator to back off.
There will be one upside to a Clinton Presidency, at least for university budgets: Bill Clinton will have to take a sabbatical from living the good life on their expense accounts. Until then, they may have to tighten their belts.