WASHINGTON, United States (AP) – Former president Bill Clinton raced back onto the paid speech circuit last year and raked in nearly US$7.5 million (euro5.97 million) for talks that cost as much as US$350,000 (euro279,000) each.

Clinton earned US$650,000 (euro517,400) for just two appearances in two days before major gatherings in Canada by motivational speaker Tony Robbins, according to financial disclosure records filed by Clinton’s wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The filings were made public Wednesday.

As a United States senator, she is required to report her spouse’s income as well as her own. Other lawmakers filings also were issued Wednesday.

The former president made US$7.475 million (euro5.95 million) in 2005, or eight times as much as he earned the prior year when he was stuck at home for long periods finishing his memoirs and recovering from heart bypass surgery.

Clinton earned just US$875,000 (euro696,500) for speeches that year. Spokesman Jay Carson said the president had “an exceptionally busy schedule,” and that paid speeches were sandwiched in around charity work on global HIV/AIDS, childhood obesity, and other causes.

“Between the foundation and work on Katrina and the tsunami, paid speeches are actually a very small part of his schedule,” said Carson. Since leaving the White House in 2001, the Clintons have become millionaires many times over.

The bulk of that new wealth came from Bill Clinton’s paid appearances and both Clintons’ lucrative book-writing deals.

In 2005, the couple held one bank account valued between US$5 million (euro3.98 million) and US$25 million (euro19.9 million), and reported the same multi-million dollar range for a separate blind trust.

The 42nd president of the United States made 42 paid appearances around the globe, and the cheapest one cost US$100,000 (euro79,600). Appearances in Abu Dhabi, Munich, and Calgary earned him US$300,000 (euro238,800) apiece, but they weren’t the biggest.

Tony Robbins’ Power Within motivational seminar paid him US$350,000 (euro278,600) for an October appearance in Toronto, as did Blex SL for an appearance in the Canary Islands.

In September he received US$125,000 for appearing via videoconference from New York.

While the filings offer a glimpse into the financial strength of the power couple, they do not reveal everything.

Disclosure rules do not require Bill Clinton to say how much he earns as a partner with Yucaipa Global Opportunities Fund, a Los Angeles-based investment firm.

He is only required to report he made more than US$1,000 (euro796) from Yucaipa, as with his nonemployee compensation from Info USA, an Omaha-based global business database firm.

The paperwork also doesn’t say how much Clinton earned last year from his book, My Life, though published reports said he inked a deal for US$10 million (euro7.96 million) to US$12 million (euro9.55 million).

Last year, Senator Clinton earned US$872,891 (euro695,000) from her best-selling memoir Living History, which is on top of some US$8.7 million (euro6.93 million) reported in prior years.