Inside the negotiations to secure a Bill Clinton speaking engagement: Bartering, bickering and outsize expense reports

By Evan Halper

Bill and Hil­lary Clin­ton have net­ted more than $150 mil­lion in speak­ing fees since he left the White House. These emails of­fer a glimpse of the be­hind-the-scenes ne­go­ti­at­ing that went on soon after the former pres­id­ent hit the speak­ing cir­cuit — and pushed fees for such lec­tures to new heights.

Read the story: Be­hind a Bill Clin­ton speak­ing en­gage­ment: A $1,400 hotel phone bill and $700 din­ner for two

A bizarre ra­cist re­mark from one event or­gan­izer doesn’t get in the way of Clin­ton’s speak­ing agency ul­ti­mately clos­ing a $600,000, six-speech deal in Cali­for­nia.

A large batch of cor­res­pond­ence shows or­gan­izers scur­ry­ing to se­cure a private plane, deal­ing with some big ex­penses at the Fair­mont hotel in San Fran­cisco and try­ing to fig­ure out who can — and can­not — be around Clin­ton dur­ing his vis­it.

Anxious or­gan­izers are as­sured there will not be any out­rageous ex­penses. Later, they would re­ceive a nearly $1,400 hotel phone bill.

Or­gan­izers of these events had nev­er been re­quired to sub­mit ques­tions a speak­er would be asked in ad­vance. This is what they thought of the ques­tions pro­posed by Clin­ton’s hand­lers.

What happened when the con­fid­ant whom Clin­ton travels with got nervous about the dir­ec­tion of one event.

Even Clin­ton seemed to re­gret his de­mand that all audi­ence ques­tions be screened in ad­vance. Here’s what happened when one event or­gan­izer ig­nored it and asked a ques­tion about the con­tro­ver­sial par­don of fu­git­ive fin­an­ci­er Marc Rich.