Hillary Clinton defended the millions of dollars she and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have earned giving paid speeches since leaving public office in an exclusive interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer ahead of Tuesday's release of her new memoir, "Hard Choices." 
 
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 "We came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt," Clinton told Sawyer, referring to the hefty legal fees incurred during their White House years. "We had no money when we got there, and we struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for mortgages, for houses, for Chelsea's education. You know, it was not easy." 
 
 She added, "Bill has worked really hard -- and it's been amazing to me -- he's worked very hard. First of all, we had to pay off all our debts, which was, you know, he had to make double the money because of obviously taxes and then pay off the debts and get us houses and take care of family members." 
 
 Much more of the interview with Hillary Clinton and ABC's Diane Sawyer will air during a one-hour ABC News primetime special tonight at 9 p.m. ET. ABC's Robin Roberts will follow up with Clinton's first live interview Tuesday, June 10, on "Good Morning America." 
 
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 Hillary Clinton's individual speaking fees reportedly average $200,000 per appearance. 
 
 "Let me put it this way," Clinton told Sawyer. "I thought making speeches for money was a much better thing than getting connected with any one group or company as so many people who leave public life do." 
 
 Since leaving the State Department, Clinton has spoken before a wide-variety of businesses and trade groups -- from corporations like Goldman Sachs, to a scrap recycling conference in Las Vegas, to a group of Silicon Valley technology leaders. However, not all of the speaking appearances have been paid. For example, earlier this year, Clinton waived her fees and travel expenses to address the United Methodist Women Conference in Kentucky. 
 
 "I happen to have given lots of free speeches," Clinton added in the interview, which took place at her Washington, DC home. ||||| This post has been updated. 
 
 On Monday morning, ABC teased an interview between all-but-announced presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the network's Diane Sawyer set to air later in the evening. 
 
 One particular exchange jumped out at us. Clinton says that she and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, left the White House in debt, and needed the speaking fees they both earned in order to pay those debts. 
 
 SAWYER: You've made five million making speeches? The president's made more than a hundred million dollars? CLINTON: Well, you have no reason to remember, but we came out of the White House not only dead broke but in debt. We had no money when we got there, and we struggled to piece together the resources for mortgages for houses, for Chelsea's education. You know, it was not easy. Bill has worked really hard and it's been amazing to me. He's worked very hard. First of all, we had to pay off all our debts. You know, you had to make double the money because of, obviously, taxes, and then pay off the debts and get us houses and take care of family members. 
 
 We also did not remember that, specifically. Clinton's opponents didn't seem inclined toward much sympathy, quickly lampooning it on Twitter. A specific target: Clinton's reference to the need to buy "houses," a comment reminiscent of John McCain's awkward failure in 2008 to remember how many homes he owned. 
 
 My favorite part of Hillary's "the struggle is real" interview is when she talks about paying for the family's "houses." Plural. — T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) June 9, 2014 
 
 And here are the houses, courtesy of the conservative group America Rising. 
 
 Certainly, the Clintons accrued an enormous amount in legal fees toward the end of the 1990s, but is Clinton's tacit suggestion that the family was scraping by accurate? 
 
 Well, not exactly. Clinton left the White House to head to the Capitol as New York's junior senator in 2000, meaning that she had to file annual disclosures of how much she and her husband earned, owned, and owed. We took a look at those filings, via Open Secrets. And this is what the Clinton's wealth looked like for the first four years after they left office in early 2001. 
 
 We considered three things: what the Clintons reported as income on their taxes, what they reported as assets in Hillary Clinton's mandated disclosures, and what was listed as being owed. The disclosures only give broad boundaries for the value of the assets owned, so the true value of their assets lies somewhere within the dark-red bar. 
 
 So, yes, it is technically true the Clintons left office in debt. But, a year later, the couple's assets had soared. And, as was reported at the time, the Clintons' debt was entirely gone by the end of 2004 — well before Hillary Clinton left the Senate and well before she left her position as secretary of state. Nor was that income entirely from speaking fees; Clinton's memoir Living History earned the couple a great deal of income, including $2.8 million reported in her 2001 financial disclosure. 
 
 What's more, there are perks that come with being a former president. According to an April report from the Congressional Research Service, Bill Clinton has received nearly $16 million in pensions and benefits from the federal government since leaving office. That includes $944,000 in fiscal year 2014 for office space, staff, and a pension. 
 
 If you were wondering, it was also not as though Hillary Clinton's unsuccessful 2008 bid for the presidency thrust the couple back into debt. For her 2009 disclosure, filed because of her appointment to lead the Department of State, the Clintons' assets were worth somewhere between $10 million and $50 million. 
 
 They did, however, have up to $65,000 in credit card debt. Clinton made $200, 000-plus for individual speeches in 2013, after she left the State Department. So that credit card debt probably didn't stick around long. ||||| She drives a luxury Mercedes and always dresses to kill — but Jill Kelley is actually drowning in debt. 
 
 The woman at the root of the four-star scandal that led to the downfall of David Petraeus and threatens the career of Gen. John Allen lives an extravagant lifestyle that conceals mountains of money owed to banks and credit card companies, court documents show. 
 
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 The palatial home in Tampa, where Kelley, and her husband, Scott, hosted top military brass, including Petraeus and Allen, has been in foreclosure since 2010. 
 
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 Court records reveal that in March of that year, Bank of America claimed the Kelleys hadn’t paid their mortgage since September 2009. 
 
 The bank said the couple owed $328,338 on their home valued at $1,837,571. 
 
 SDFL/Splash News 
 
 The house remains in the foreclosure process, with the most recent motion filed on Oct. 12. 
 
 Kelley, who is an unpaid social liaison to the men and women in uniform coming and going from MacDill Air Force Base mere miles away from her home, never showed signs of stress. 
 
 “ She turns heads,” an anonymous friend of the Kelleys told the Daily Mail. 
 
 “At the parties she would flirt with all the senior military guys. She’s touchy-feely. Her hands would be on their arms. She was attentive. It’s not hard to see why she had some guys under her spell.” 
 
 Yet the party was at risk of coming to an end for at least two years. 
 
 Chris O'Meara/AP 
 
 A second property owned by the Kelleys in downtown Tampa was also in foreclosure proceedings beginning in 2010. 
 
 In that case, Central Bank claimed the couple owed $2.2 million, according to the Tampa Bay Times. The case was resolved, though details were not available. 
 
 And in 2010, Chase Bank sued the Kelleys over failure to pay a $25,088.56 debt on a revolving credit account. The case was voluntarily dismissed by the bank a year later. 
 
 Regions Bank sued the Kelleys for $253,437.31 in unpaid credit card bills, according to court documents. 
 
 In February the couple agreed to pay $850 a month, with $8,500 down, until the balance is paid, records show. 
 
 Chris O'Meara/AP 
 
 All told, Jill or Scott Kelley have been the subject of at least nine lawsuits since they moved to Florida, according to the Tampa Bay Times. 
 
 But their troubles weren’t just restricted to the Sunshine State. 
 
 The Kelleys were sued in 2004 in Montgomery County, Pa., by a couple who said they refused to return a $10,000 deposit on a condo rental that fell through. The court issued a default judgment against the Kelleys, and court records show it was paid the following year. 
 
 Despite their debt, the couple remained firmly established as the de facto welcoming committee to top military brass at U.S. Central Command. 
 
 Photos from bashes at Chez Kelley show a jolly Petraeus wearing beads around his neck alongside the woman who would ultimately lead to his undoing. Holly Petraeus — who is now reportedly fuming over her spy husband’s not-so-secret affair — also is all smiles. 
 
 Courtesy of Tampa Bay Magazine. 
 
 The swank soirees came complete with catered buffets, valet parking, primo cigars, Champagne and even string quartets, the Washington Post reported. 
 
 “Jill was such an awesome client,” one caterer told the Tampa Bay Times. “(She) did so much for the military, fabulous mother and amazing wife; can’t say enough nice things about her. She never spared anything for the military. It was all about them.” 
 
 Scott Kelley is reportedly a highly sought-after surgeon specializing in cancer of the esophagus . 
 
 But a tax filing from 2007 for the Doctor Kelley Cancer Foundation provides a hint at the cost of sparing no expense for the brass he and his wife so admired. 
 
 The nonprofit foundation lists only Jill and Scott, along with Jill’s twin sister Natalie Khawam as its trustees. 
 
 Chris O'Meara/AP 
 
 The foundation — dedicated to “efforts to discover ways to improve the quality of life of terminally ill adult cancer patients” had no employees, according to the documents. 
 
 Yet in a single year, the Kelley clan spent $43,317 in meals and entertainment connected to the foundation, according to tax filings. They spent $8,822 in travel expenses, and $3,740 in office-related expenses, though the nonprofit was based in their home. 
 
 The foundation did not file tax information past 2007. 
 
 But it’s clear the Kelleys’ connections had perks — though they couldn’t save Natalie from her own money troubles. 
 
 Both four-star generals caught in the scandal vouched for Natalie in letters supporting her in a custody battle over her son. 
 
 Amy Scherzer/St. Petersburg Times 
 
 Not only did the judge in the case award Natalie’s ex-husband custody last year of their now 4-year-old son, John, but he also told Natalie to pay his legal bills amounting to $350,000. 
 
 She filed for bankruptcy in April after racking up more than $3 million in debt, according to federal court records. Court filings indicate that the debt included an $800,000 personal loan from Jill and Scott Kelley. 
 
 The status of Natalie’s most recent custody appeal was not known. 
 
 None of the lawyers listed in the reams of court documents returned phone calls. 
 
 Chris O'Meara/AP 
 
 The only information from the Kelley family came in a statement from their superstar crisis manager, Judy Smith, who pleaded for privacy. 
 
 Jill’s brother David Khawam, an attorney based in Mount Laurel, N.J., told the Burlington County Times he spoke with her Sunday. 
 
 “She was doing okay. I don’t know how she’s handling it now,” Khawam, 40, told the paper. 
 
 sbrown@nydailynews.com 
 
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– Another tidbit from Hillary Clinton's interview with Diane Sawyer: She and Bill were "dead broke" and seriously in debt when his presidency ended, ABC News reports. The debt came from "hefty legal fees," she said (likely due to Bill's "sexual harassment saga," quips the Daily News). "We had no money when we got there, and we struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for mortgages, for houses, for Chelsea's education," she said. "You know, it was not easy." Despite their income of $416,039, they were $11 million in debt and took on high-paid speaking gigs—with Hillary averaging $200,000 per, reports the New York Times. Conservatives are relishing the "not easy" part, considering the couple bought a $2.85 million residence in Washington and a $1.7 million house in New York state, and put Chelsea through top-notch universities (see a sample tweet here). But not all of their income came from speaking gigs, the Washington Post reports: Hillary's memoir Living History sold well, and Bill received almost $16 million in benefits and pensions from the federal government. Plus the gigs kept them from working as lobbyists, "as so many people who leave public life do," said Hillary. While she has given talks to high-flyers like Goldman Sachs and Silicon Valley tech leaders, she waived all costs to address the United Methodist Women Conference in Kentucky. "I happen to have given lots of free speeches," she added.