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 The Clintons reported $20.4 million in income for 2007 as they gave the public the most detailed look at their finances in eight years. Almost half the former first couple's money came from Bill Clinton's speeches.
"I have absolutely nothing against rich people," Hillary Clinton told North Dakota Democrats at their party convention Friday night in Grand Forks. "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 doing what he loves doing most, talking to people."
The tax returns are a portrait in post-presidential success. The Clintons, who had lived in taxpayer-paid housing in the governor's mansion in Arkansas or the White House for years, left the presidency struggling with a legal defense fund stemming from a spate of investigations. They now are wealthy enough that she could lend her presidential campaign $5 million earlier this year.
The campaign released tax returns from 2000 through 2006 and gave highlights from their 2007 return. The Clintons have asked for an extension for filing their 2007 tax returns, citing the dissolution of a blind trust last year.
The Democratic presidential candidate and her husband paid $33.8 million in taxes from 2000 through 2007. They listed $10.25 million in charitable contributions during that period.
Clinton has been under pressure to release her tax returns, especially from rival Sen. Barack Obama, who posted his 2000 to 2006 returns on his campaign Web site last week. Neither Obama nor Republican Sen. John McCain has made their 2007 tax returns public, though both say they will this month.
The Clintons last made their returns public in 2000 when they reported an adjusted gross income of $416,039 for 1999. Since then, the former president has embarked on a number of business ventures and has made millions from speaking engagements and books.
In the tax returns, the former president describes his occupation as "Speaking & Writing."
Beside speeches and books, his biggest single business income is from his partnership with Yucaipa Global Opportunities Fund, a Los Angeles-based investment firm founded by longtime Clinton fundraiser Ron Burkle. Between 2003 and 2006, the returns show total Yucaipa partnership income of $12.5 million. The 2007 summary provided by the campaign lists $2.75 million in partnership income.
President Clinton also has been an adviser to InfoUSA, a data company whose chief executive, Vinod Gupta, has been a major donor to Democrats and gave at least $1 million to Bill Clinton's presidential library in Arkansas. Clinton received $400,000 in payments from the company in 2006 and 2007, according to the documents.
According to a summary of the seven years provided by the campaign, the former president's speech income since he left the White House totals $51.85 million and his income from his two books
- "My Life " and "Giving" - totals $29.6 million, including a $15 million advance for "My Life." Bill Clinton has traveled the world, giving paid speeches to multinational corporations, investment banks and motivational groups.
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 Details of the former president's speaking fees were included in Sen. Clinton's financial disclosure report last year. In 2006 and 2007, he earned fees from $100,000 to $450,000 speaking to such corporations as IBM, General Motors, and Cisco Systems, finance giants such as Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers, and trade groups such as the National Association of Realtors and the Mortgage Bankers Association. He also has been paid to speak to nonprofit or charity groups, including the TJ Martell Foundation, which finances leukemia research, Nelson Mandela's Children's Fund and, last March, to the Boys and Girls Club of Los Angeles.
The campaign has said Clinton typically donates millions of dollars worth of free speeches to charities
Hillary Clinton had $10.5 million in book income over the period from her book "Living History." She donated earnings from her other book, "It Takes a Village," to charity.
Clinton's tax returns show that of the remaining presidential candidates, she is the one most able to access large amounts of personal money. She lent her campaign $5 million in late February and could contribute more if she finds herself falling far behind Obama's proficient fundraising.
McCain's wife, Cindy, is heiress to her father's stake in Hensley & Co. of Phoenix, one of the largest beer distributorships in the country and her worth could exceed $100 million. But the couple has a prenuptial agreement that has kept most assets in her name. In his financial disclosures, McCain lists his major sources of income as his Senate salary of $169,300 and a Navy pension of about $56,000.
In 2006, Obama reported income of nearly $1 million, with nearly half of it coming from the publication of his second book, "The Audacity of Hope." Last week, the campaign disclosed that Obama and his wife, Michelle, gave $240,000 to charity last year.
The tax return shows a rite of passage for the Clintons: 2002 was the last year they claimed daughter Chelsea, now 28, as a dependent.
The returns also reference interest free loans to unidentified "family members." Based on the "imputed interest" listed in the 2006 return
- that is interest that would have been paid - the loans likely total more than $300,000.
"The loans to family members are personal; the Clintons are going to respect their family members' privacy," Clinton spokesman Jay Carson said.
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Associated Press writers Nancy Benac, Charles Babington, Nedra Pickler and Pete Yost in Washington and Beth Fouhy in Grand Forks, N.D., contributed to this article.
[Associated
Press; By JIM KUHNHENN and DEVLIN BARRETT]
Copyright 2008 The Associated
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