Chicago ? The 2000 through 2006 tax returns for Sen. Barack Obama and his wife were posted on his campaign Web site Tuesday, part of an ongoing effort to paint Sen. Hillary Clinton as a secretive politician who has failed to disclose key information.

Clinton’s campaign, meanwhile, said it hopes to release her post-White House tax records within the next week, earlier than previous estimates of mid-April.

A spokesman for the Illinois Democrat also said the couple’s 2007 returns would be released before the April 22 Pennsylvania primary, while adding that they gave $240,000 to charity during the most recent tax year.

The Tribune reported in April 2007 that tax returns for previous years for the Obamas showed that they had only recently dug deeply into their own pockets to support charitable causes.

For example, in 2002, the year before Obama launched his campaign for U.S. Senate, the Obamas reported income of $259,394 and $1,050 in deductions for gifts to charity, below the national average.

In 2006, the couple’s largest charitable gift – $22,500 – was to Trinity United Church of Christ, the home of Obama’s longtime controversial pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said he did not know how much they gave to the church in 2007.

Obama’s campaign has repeatedly criticized Clinton for not releasing the documents sooner, as it has tried to suggest that he is an advocate for openness and transparency.

“If Senator Clinton shares those same ideals, all she has to do is send someone down to Kinko’s,” said Robert Gibbs, Obama’s communications director. He added that Clinton’s campaign has been “dead silent” on whether it will release only cover pages or also more detailed schedules.

Asked when Obama would release additional records from his time as an Illinois state senator – something Clinton called for Tuesday – Gibbs said that is a nonissue.

“There’s nothing to release,” he said. “I think that has been pretty well documented in the press for many months.”

In a Tribune interview last fall, however, Obama said he was not sure what records he still had from his time in Springfield, Ill., but that most were no longer in his possession.

“The problem is whatever remaining documents I have are inevitably incomplete,” he said. “And then the question’s going to be, where’s this or where’s that. Once I start heading down that road, then it puts me in a position that could end up being misleading.”