WASHINGTON — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's family has amassed enormous wealth this decade, pulling in more than $109 million through books, speaking fees and investments, according to tax returns released Friday by the Clinton campaign.
The returns show that the family's annual income shot up after her husband left the White House, rising from $358,000 in 2000 to $16 million a year later, when Bill Clinton listed his occupation as "speaking and writing."
In the years since 2001, the family's income has never dipped below $7.9 million, and reached as high as $20.4 million last year.
The New York senator had resisted releasing her tax records, initially promising to do so only if she won the Democratic presidential nomination. She relented amid protests that she was withholding details about the family finances that voters needed to make their choice. Her Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, had already made public returns covering 2000 through 2006.
"The Clintons have now made public 30 years of tax returns, a record matched by few people in public service," Jay Carson, a campaign spokesman, said in a prepared statement. "None of Hillary Clinton's presidential opponents have revealed anything close to this amount of personal financial information."
For Clinton, there were few appealing options. In revealing that she and her husband are millionaires many times over, she may trigger a backlash from her political base -- households earning less than $75,000 a year.
In about two weeks she faces a must-win primary in Pennsylvania, where recent census data list the median income as about $44,000. That sum is less than what the Clintons claimed in expenses for "cleaning and maintenance" on their homes.
"We're heading toward the economic doldrums," said Democratic strategist Bill Carrick. "It's a pretty inconvenient time for this to come out."
Obama's tax records show a large disparity in wealth between the rivals.
The Obamas had a lucrative 2005, for example, making more than $1.6 million. That year the Clintons hauled in more than $18 million. In 2006, the Clintons earned $16 million to the Obamas' $991,296.
Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain has said he will release his tax returns later this month.
Both Clinton and Obama have called for rolling back the Bush administration's tax cuts for the wealthy, including themselves.
