International Women's Day 2014
Hillary Clinton attends an International Women's Day event at the UN headquarters in New York, March 7, 2014   Reuters

Hillary Clinton has revealed that her family was "dead broke" when her husband Bill left the White House.

The former US Secretary of State told ABC News at the beginning of her promotional tour of her new memoirs, titled, Hard Choices, that the family were burdened with huge legal bills after Bill's Monica Lewinsky affair.

"We came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt," said Clinton.

"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."

After leaving the White House, the couple faced legal bills as high as $10.6m despite Bill's large income from speaking events.

The couple's wealth is estimated to be between $10m (£5.95m) and $50m (£29.75m).

In another extract of her latest book, Clinton said she was convinced sending arms to moderate rebels in the Syrian Civil War would turn the tide of the battle against Assad, but was overruled by President Obama.

"The risks of both action and inaction were high, [but] the president's [Obama's] inclination was to stay the present course and not take the significant further step of arming rebels," she added.

"No one likes to lose a debate, including me. But this was the president's call and I respected his deliberations and decision."

Clinton's memoirs are released today.