Clintons' earnings: $10.7M

2015 tax returns disclosed; Trump focuses on emails

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus greets presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign rally Friday in Erie, Pa.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus greets presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign rally Friday in Erie, Pa.

WASHINGTON -- Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton earned $10.7 million last year, according to a tax filing released by her campaign Friday that sought to pressure Republican rival Donald Trump to disclose his tax returns.

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AP

Hillary Clinton boards a plane Thursday at Chicago Midway International Airport on her way to Westchester, N.Y., after a speech in Chicago.

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AP

Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Tim Kaine talks Friday with Charlotte Goble during a quick stop at Granite State Candy in Concord, N.H., with Rep. Ann Kuster, D-N.H., and state Rep. Steve Shurtleff.

"Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine continue to set the standard for financial transparency as she releases her 2015 personal tax return," campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri said Friday. The campaign also released returns for Kaine, a U.S. senator from Virginia and Clinton's running mate, and his wife.

"In stark contrast, Donald Trump is hiding behind fake excuses and backtracking on his previous promises to release his tax returns. He has failed to provide the public with the most basic financial information disclosed by every major candidate in the last 40 years. What is he trying to hide?"

The filing shows that on the earnings of $10.7 million, the Clintons' adjusted gross income was $10.6 million, and they paid $3.6 million in federal income taxes in 2015, for a federal tax rate of 34.2 percent. They paid an effective state and local income tax rate of 9 percent, meaning their combined effective rate was more than 40 percent.

The bulk of their income -- more than $6 million -- came from speaking fees for appearances made largely before Hillary Clinton began her campaign in April 2015. They gave more than $1,042,000 to charity, with $1 million going to the Clinton family foundation. That is the financial vehicle the family uses to give money to museums, schools, churches and other charitable causes, and is not the same as the better-known Clinton Foundation.

The Clintons' income puts them well within the ranks of the top 0.1 percent of Americans, though they pay a higher tax rate than many of their peers, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, based on 2013 data.

Trump has refused to make his filings public, saying they're under audit by the Internal Revenue Service and he'll release them only once that review is complete.

Trump steered clear of mentioning his personal taxes Friday. A spokesman pointed to Clinton's move to delete tens of thousands of personal emails from her private account as secretary of state and questions about whether she used her government post to benefit the Clinton Foundation.

"Hillary Clinton has turned over the only records nobody wants to see from her -- the American public wants to see the 33,000 emails she deleted to obstruct an FBI investigation," said Trump spokesman Jason Miller.

Clinton's legal team turned over more than 30,000 emails from her server to the State Department last March, but only after deleting another 30,000 messages that the legal team deemed private and personal. The FBI has reconstructed some of the missing emails.

The Clintons have disclosed tax returns for every year since 1977, in part because of laws requiring public officials to release returns. She put out her most recent eight years of tax filings last summer, and several years during her first presidential bid.

Seeking common ground with blue-collar workers who have been attracted to Trump, Clinton frequently mentions his returns to suggest that his economic plans would benefit his personal interests and question whether he's as wealthy as he claims.

"Here's a pretty incredible fact: There is a non-zero chance that Donald Trump isn't paying any taxes," Clinton tweeted, after releasing her own returns.

Kaines' bracket lower

Clinton's campaign released 10 years of returns from running mate Kaine and his wife, Anne Holton. Over the past decade, the two have donated 7.5 percent of their income to charity, the campaign said, and paid an effective tax rate of 25.6 percent last year. Their effective federal tax rate ranged between 13.4 percent and 24 percent over that span.

Kaine, the Virginia senator who's spent much of his life in public service, reported a far lower income than the Clintons. Over the past decade, he and his wife earned the most in 2014, more than $314,000 in adjusted gross income. The Clintons made about 90 times more, reporting nearly $28 million for the same year.

Trump's running mate, Mike Pence, has yet to say if he will release his taxes, which he has not done as governor of Indiana. A spokesman for the governor's office referred all tax-related questions to his vice presidential campaign. The campaign did not respond to messages.

Clinton has tried to paint Trump as an out-of-touch business mogul. But Republicans have seized upon the millions the Clintons made in speaking fees and a comment by Clinton in a 2014 interview that she was "dead broke" after leaving the White House in 2001. The couple owed millions in legal fees but quickly generated far more from book deals, paid appearances and consulting fees.

The campaign made a point Friday of compiling the speaking fees into online lists broken out by the name of the company or organization she addressed, as a peg for Clinton's argument that she has nothing to hide. They had previously been reported in tax returns filed for 2013 and 2014 and released more than a year ago.

Clinton delivered six paid speeches in 2015, including one to the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. She commanded her highest rate from eBay, which paid her $315,000 for a March 2015 address in San Jose, Calif.

Bill Clinton's consulting work for GEMS Education, a global network of for-profit schools based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, earned him more than $5.6 million in fees between 2010 and 2015, according to the tax returns.

He also earned more than $17 million over the same period for consulting work for Laureate Education Inc. another for-profit education system based in Baltimore that makes most of its profits from overseas operations. Several former students have sued a school operated by the company, alleging fraud.

Bill Clinton's office previously said he had ended his consulting work with Laureate last year. On Friday, his office confirmed that Clinton also halted his business dealings with GEMS Education last year.

sarcasm on ISIS

On the campaign trail Friday, Trump claimed he was not serious when he insisted several times this week that President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were the "founders" of the Islamic State terrorist group.

After making the suggestion at a rally Wednesday night, Trump doubled down on the assertion Thursday, insisting in interviews that he really did intend to say that the president and Clinton had created the Islamic state. But in an early-morning Twitter post Friday, Trump said that he was just being sarcastic.

At an afternoon rally in Erie, Pa., Trump repeated his claim that he was being sarcastic, but then added that he was "not that sarcastic, to be honest with you."

The latest firestorm comes as Trump has been trying to refocus his campaign on the economy as his poll numbers decline. Trump and Clinton gave dueling economic speeches in Michigan this week.

On Friday, Trump tried again to return to that subject. Taking again to Twitter, he warned that Clinton's proposals would come with higher taxes and he said that he found her speech boring.

Trump has used the sarcasm defense before. In late July, after he drew widespread criticism by appearing to suggest that the Russians should hack Clinton's emails, he later explained his remarks by saying, "Of course I'm being sarcastic."

"I think it's a pattern of him testing certain messages that resonate with his fans, seeing how they play, and then 'clarifying' one way or another depending on the reaction," said Ruth Sherman, a communications expert who has been monitoring the language used by both candidates. "But I also think he's clever about his statements and knows they are vague enough to be filtered through various lenses."

Ahead of rallies Friday in Pennsylvania, Trump continued to lash out on Twitter at the media for harping on his every word and for being biased against him. He mocked the "poor, pathetic" television pundits who try to figure him out and said, "They can't!"

Later on Friday, he encouraged supporters in Pennsylvania to be extra-vigilant for signs of voter fraud on Election Day, as he argued that "cheating" is the only thing that will prevent him from defeating Clinton in the key battleground state.

But recent polls show Clinton leading Trump by a substantial margin in the Keystone State. And in-depth studies of voting have found very few instances of fraud nationwide.

In a 2014 study, Loyola University Law School professor Justin Levitt found just 31 incidents of voter impersonation out of more than 1 billion ballots cast in a 14-year span.

Speaking in Altoona, Pa., Trump said it was "shocking" that Pennsylvania does not require photo identification to vote. The state's voter-ID law was struck down in 2014.

He argued that he has strong momentum in the state and that, "the only way we can lose, in my opinion, I really mean this, Pennsylvania, is if cheating goes on."

Trump said: "We're going to watch Pennsylvania. Go down to certain areas and watch and study make sure other people don't come in and vote five times."

Campaigns are allowed to appoint poll watchers on Election Day to observe the process for irregularities.

Information for this article was contributed by Lisa Lerer, Ken Thomas, Eileen Sullivan, Jeff Horwitz, Josh Lederman, Jill Colvin, Jonathan Lemire and Emily Swanson of The Associated Press; by Anne Gearan, Tom Hamburger, John Wagner and Sean Sullivan of The Washington Post; and by Alan Rappeport of The New York Times.

A Section on 08/13/2016

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