Clinton writes off $13M loan

Having spent more than a year on a failed effort to win the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has officially recognized the multimillion-dollar toll the campaign took on her personal assets.

Clinton filed papers with the Federal Election Commission over the weekend formally writing off all of the $13.2 million she lent the campaign, plus $77,900 in interest on the loan.

Clinton was able to write off the loan because she and her husband, former President Clinton, have amassed significant wealth since leaving the White House. The couple have reported earnings of $109 million during the period, mostly from Bill Clinton's speeches.

Her giving up any hope of reclaiming the money, a step signaled in September when the statutory deadline passed for recouping all but a small piece of it, confirms the financial strain the fundraising juggernaut of the Obama campaign placed on Clinton personally.

And in addition to the personal loan, the same weekend filing showed she still owed millions to dozens of vendors as of Nov. 30. She did manage to chip away at that debt in November, reducing by roughly $1.1 million the $7.5 million she owed at the end of October. The single biggest debt as of November's end was $5.4 million, to the firm of Mark Penn, her former chief strategist.

The shadow of her debt has hung over Clinton ever since she ended her campaign for the nomination in June. The Clintons have held a series of fundraisers to try to pay it off, and President-elect Obama has been urging his supporters to help out.

Clinton even recruited her mother, Dorothy Rodham, to the cause. In early December, Rodham sent an e-mail message to supporters urging contributions to help retire her daughter's campaign debt and offering an autographed children's book about Clinton in exchange for a donation of $250 or more.

Now, nominated to be secretary of state, Clinton has been dealing with additional finance-related complications. Her husband already has disclosed a long list of donors to his charitable organizations, making his international dealings more transparent and thus meeting a condition Obama set for his selection of Clinton.

And Congress has removed another stumbling block by adopting a measure to reduce the secretary of state's salary, satisfying an obscure constitutional provision that forbids appointment of a lawmaker to a federal position that was either created or given a pay increase during the legislator's concurrent term.

But if Clinton is confirmed as secretary, her ability to raise money to pay off her campaign debt will be sharply restricted. Provisions in federal law could keep her from personally soliciting contributions at all, leaving the job to her presidential-campaign committee.