In 2006 the couple acquired an interest through a blind trust in a private investment fund based in the Cayman Islands, which is connected to Haim Saban. He is a billionaire Hollywood mogul and a big fundraiser for Hillary Clinton.
“This is a couple who have accumulated a vast amount of wealth in a very short period,” said Sally Bedell Smith, author of For Love of Politics, a biography of the Clinton White House years. “It will be interesting to see whether it will have an impact on the regular Joe worker.”
Hillary Clinton tried to delay releasing the tax returns until after the primary season but was taunted by Barack Obama, her rival for the Democratic nomination, into making them public after he released his own, showing that he and his wife Michelle earned about $1m in 2006.
The Obama campaign will now step up the pressure on Clinton to release the names of donors to her husband’s presidential library, who include a number of Middle Eastern potentates. More than 10% of its $165m cost came from foreign sources, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Carl Bernstein, the Watergate journalist and author of A Woman in Charge, a biography of Hillary Clinton, said the tax returns provided an incomplete picture of the Clintons’ financial relationships.
“This is not transparency. That’s the difficulty with the Clintons all the time. There’s always less than transparency when these things occur under duress,” Bernstein said.
Clinton told a convention of Democrats in North Dakota when her tax forms were made public: “Don’t get me wrong, I have absolutely nothing against rich people. As a matter of fact my husband, much to my surprise and his, has made a lot of money since he left the White House by doing what he loves most - talking to people.”
Bill Clinton’s speaking fees and money from his 2004 autobiography, My Life, as well as the partnership earnings from Burkle’s Yucaipa Global Opportunities Fund, accounted for the largest portion of the Clintons’ joint income. Bill Clinton appears to have played the role of goodwill “door opener” for the billionaire financier, who has business ties with the government of Dubai and a media company in China.
“This is going to put Bill Clinton back in the forefront of the story in a big way,” said Bedell Smith. “He has already had a profoundly negative effect on the campaign with his volcanic eruptions and erratic behaviour.”
She believes that the couple’s wealth will remind voters of the ethical problems of the Clinton White House years. “They got into trouble because of suspect business dealings which were perhaps not illegal, but raised ethical questions about conflicts of interest,” she said.
Clinton’s presidential prospects are already threatened by a steep decline in support in Pennsylvania, once thought to be a bedrock of her campaign. Hope is rising in the Obama camp that he could defy expectations and pull off a surprise win when the state votes on April 22.
Defeat in the Pennsylvania primary would administer a seismic shock to Clinton’s campaign and send superdelegates – the party leaders who hold the casting vote at the Democratic national convention this summer - racing to crown Obama as the victor.
“If she loses, the race is over,” said Tad Devine, a senior Democratic strategist.
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