Denver , Colorado , last August , the deadline mandated by the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance law . The former New York senator was forced to forgive the entire loan amount . Her campaign owed $ 6.4 million to 16 creditors at the end of November ; $ 5.9 million to five creditors at the end of December ; and the current $ 2.3 million owed to just one creditor at the end of March . That creditor is Penn , Schoen & Berland , a political consulting and polling firm that advised Clinton during her presidential bid . The firm 's president , Mark Penn , was Clinton 's senior campaign strategist until he stepped down last April amid revelations that he had lobbied on behalf of Colombia for a U.S.-Colombia trade deal that Clinton opposed . Penn remained involved with the campaign . Earlier this year , Clinton and her supporters raced to pay as much of the debt as possible by the time she was confirmed and sworn in as the nation 's 67th secretary of state on January 21 . As of that date , Clinton became subject to a federal law known as the Hatch
WASHINGTON -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reached an important milestone Wednesday in her quest to pay the debt from her failed 2008 presidential bid : For the first time in eight months , her campaign committee reported having more money in the bank than it owes . Secretary of State Hillary Clinton 's campaign committee reported owing $ 2.3 million in debt at the end of March . On a day most Americans were preoccupied with filing their federal income taxes , Clinton 's campaign committee filed finance documents with the Federal Election Commission , reporting a total of $ 2.3 million in debts at the end of March , compared with $ 2.6 million in the bank . The nation 's top diplomat has been steadily chipping away at unpaid campaign bills since suspending her White House bid in June 2008 , when her debt peaked at $ 25.2 million . That amount covered $ 12 million owed to vendors , as well as the $ 13.2 million she loaned her campaign from personal funds . Clinton 's campaign was unable to repay that personal loan by the time the Democratic National Convention convened in