Bill Clinton's spokesperson refutes claims about compensation in Clinton Cash

A spokesperson for Bill Clinton is disputing claims made in a new book about the Clinton Foundation, saying the former president was not paid by an Irish businessman to give a series of speeches.

As BuzzFeed reports, in the upcoming book Clinton Cash, conservative researcher Peter Schweizer suggests that Clinton was paid to give speeches by Dennis O'Brien of the company Digicel, who wanted to get the contracts for mobile service in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. Schweizer writes that O'Brien paid Clinton $600,000 for speeches he gave in Ireland on Sept. 29, 2010, Oct. 8, 2011, and Oct. 9, 2013, all during the contract awarding process.

Spokesperson Matt McKenna said neither Clinton nor the Clinton Foundation received any money for two of the three speeches. The Clinton Foundation did receive a donation after the Sept. 29, 2010 speech, he said, but Clinton was not compensated. "The book's reporting is false," McKenna told BuzzFeed. "President Clinton did not personally receive speaking fees for any of these three speaking engagement in Ireland." BuzzFeed reports that another claim in the book appears to be incorrect: Schweizer claims Digicel did not receive any USAID grants before becoming involved with Clinton, but according to federal records, the company was granted more than $29,000 in USAID contracts in 2007 and 2008.

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