US Election 2008 Blog

Washington Post Staff Writers 

In the past eight years, Bill and Hillary Clinton earned a combined $109 million, with the former president collecting nearly half of that money as a speaker hired at times by companies that have been among his wife’s most generous political supporters.

After leaving the White House, the Clintons earned $30 million from their best-selling books and brought in as much as $15 million more through an investment partnership with one of her top presidential campaign fundraisers, California billionaire Ronald Burkle. The disclosures came with yesterday’s long-awaited release of the Clintons’ joint tax returns, a move made in the thick of Sen. Clinton’s fight with Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) for the Democratic nomination.

Sen. Clinton (N.Y.) initially resisted making her family’s finances public, but pressure on her to match Obama’s disclosure grew in February when she disclosed that she had dipped into her personal account to lend her campaign $5 million.

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By David M. Halbfinger - New York Times Blog

LOS ANGELES — Steven Spielberg’s exploratory phase is over: He’s a Hillary Clinton man.

After a flirtation with Senator Barack Obama in February, and maxing out his contributions to both Mr. Obama and former Senator John Edwards, the famous filmmaker today threw his support formally behind Senator Clinton.

It’s the most significant indication yet that Hollywood luminaries are returning to what was expected to be their default position at the start of the campaign, before Mr. Obama suddenly grew white-hot.

In a statement that her campaign splashed across its home page, Mr. Spielberg cited Mrs. Clinton’s “experience and strength.”

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