CNN reporter Jeff Zeleny said on Friday that the Clintons' $141 million pay day over eight years indicated the family is "not dead broke by anyone's standards."
Hillary Clinton said last year that she and her husband Bill Clinton were "dead broke" after leaving the White House in 2001. In light of her family's impressive earnings, Clinton's "dead broke" comments have played into the candidate's perception as out of touch with the concerns of ordinary Americans.
"Just a little over a year ago she told ABC's Diane Sawyer she is dead broke, they were dead broke, that they had to make money coming out of their years in public service," Zeleny said. "This is not dead broke by anyone's standards, except maybe Donald Trump's."
"She said this is a country where you can make a lot of money, and they certainly have," Zeleny said later.
The Clintons have made extraordinary sums of money giving speeches to universities, corporations, and other organizations. It is alleged that some of these payments—including payments by foreign interests—were meant to influence the decision-making of Hillary Clinton when she served as secretary of state, a charge her camp denies.
In a lengthy statement and on her campaign website, Clinton detailed that she and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, paid more than $43 million in federal taxes from 2007 to 2014, over $13 million in state taxes and donated nearly $15 million to charity over the same period.
The couple earned a total of $140.9 million, with an adjusted gross income of $139.1 million, the returns show.
Clinton said she and her husband paid an effective federal tax rate of 35.7 percent and a combined federal, state, and local effective rate of 45.8 percent last year.
"We've come a long way from my days going door-to-door for the Children's Defense Fund and earning $16,450 as a young law professor in Arkansas -- and we owe it to the opportunities America provides," Clinton wrote in the release.