KEY POINTS:
Bill and Hillary Clinton have amassed between $5 million and $25 million since 1993, when they first entered the White House and put their investments in a blind trust.
Yesterday, it was revealed that the Clintons sold off most of their investments last April, fearing that they would become a political liability in the 2008 presidential race.
The revelation that much of their wealth comes from arms, oil and pharmaceutical companies, will shock many Democrats. The Clinton's have always sided with America's put-upon working man and woman. But thanks to investments, the books they have both published and Bill Clinton's speaking engagements, they are now part of America's wealthy elite.
With the 2008 race for the White House increasingly focused on the war in Iraq, the absence of health care for tens of millions of Americans, oil insecurity and rising petrol prices, the stock portfolio was a ticking political time bomb for Hillary Clinton. A government directive this spring, meant that she had to dissolve the blind trust and reveal the assets.
Her leading opponent, Barack Obama, quickly attacked Hillary Clinton for reaping "significant financial rewards" from controversial companies and for her "unwillingness to protect American jobs" that have been outsourced to India.
- INDEPENDENT
