‘97 Bull Market Powered First Lady’s Blind Trust

An extra-good year for the stock market appears to have swelled the Clintons’ portfolio. President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton disclosed Tuesday that their 1997 assets rose to at least $1.3 million.

Their annual financial disclosure forms, released Tuesday, indicated that the Clintons could have assets of as much as $5.8 million. However, sources familiar with their finances said the bulk of the couple’s assets is in a blind trust owned by the first lady and worth slightly more than $1 million.

A year ago, the Clintons reported assets ranging from $760,000 to $1.7 million. Their unpaid legal bills are holding at around $3 million.

Whatever increase there was in the Clintons’ assets was attributed to the performance of Hillary Clinton’s blind trust. The holdings were worth less than $1 million in 1996 and--in the broad ranges of the disclosure forms--somewhere between $1 million and $5 million last year.

White House spokesman Barry Toiv said he could not pinpoint the value of the trust overseen by Boston-based Pell Rudman Trust Co., which he presumed included some mix of stocks.

“We don’t know what the trustees have done with the assets, but let’s not get carried away,” Toiv cautioned reporters. “To get to $5 million . . . [Hillary Clinton’s holdings] would have to quintuple.”

Another White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the first lady’s trust was worth slightly more than $1 million last year. In 1993, when she first turned her holdings over to the blind trust, they were valued at between $280,000 and $1.06 million.

Vice President Al Gore and his family claimed total assets of between $770,000 and $870,000.

The law requires federal officials to disclose estimates of their holdings, liabilities and incomes each year.