This is a very fair question and shouldn't be down-voted. It's a way for powerful people to pay other powerful people for arbitrary things like 'speeches' so t

This is a very fair question and shouldn't be down-voted. It's a way for powerful people to pay other powerful people for arbitrary things like 'speeches' so that they can exchange favours off the books in a very indirect way. It doesn't have to be illegal or even nefarious, but it should raise eyebrows as a possible conflict of interest.