DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Team Obama in general, have been trying to portray Mitt Romney as non-transparent or open about his personal banking for a week now, but Romney is hitting back. Unlike Romney's bank account, Operation Fast and Furious, run out of the Obama Justice Department, resulted in hundreds of people being killed, including Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. As we reported here on Townhall, President Obama asserted executive privilege in the 11th hour to protect his Attorney General Eric Holder from turning over Congressionally subpoenaed Fast and Furious documents and now, Romney is calling Obama out on it.
Monday during an interview on Sean Hannity's radio show, Romney mentioned the scandal.
Hannity: The latest attack is to go out there and put out this suggestion that you have these off-shore accounts. Now I understand the President doesn’t want to talk about the bad economic news because he himself said if he didn’t fix it, it would be a one-term proposition. What is your reaction to the continual negative campaigning and, more specifically, the insinuation that you’ve been doing something illegal and using tax shelters in the Caymans and the Bahamas etc.?
Romney: Isn’t it amazing that the President of the United States, who by the way called me and congratulated me when I locked, or got a pretty good lock on the nomination, he called me and said you know the country is going to benefit by an honest and important debate on the future direction of the country. That’s what he said. And yet, what he has done, has been one attack after the other on items that deflect interest from a real debate of the issues that the nation faces. This most recent one, suggesting that I would engage in something that is illegal, that is criminal. That I would hide assets and not pay fair taxes, not pay the taxes that are owed. I mean it’s unbelievable. And now he says well, this is a matter of transparency. Well how about the transparency of a President who through executive privilege is preventing the American people from finding out what happened in the Fast and Furious program. If there is transparency that needs to be considered here, it’s the lack of transparency in his administration to let the American people know what has happened in a scandalous activity known as Fast and Furious. So Sean, I can assure you this. I have followed the law. I have paid my taxes as due. I have also disclosed through all of the requirements of the government, every asset which I own, fairly and honestly, recognizing, of course, not to do so would be not only wrong but illegal and criminal.
Then Wednesday on Fox News' Your World With Neil Cavuto, Romney slammed Obama again over the scandal, saying essentially the same thing.
Four weeks ago, Holder admitted he had been in contact with the White House and Obama's top campaign advisor David Axelrod, about messaging tactics and how to respond to inquiries from Congressional and the press about the scandal, proving Fast and Furious has huge potential to be a major election issue. Not to mention that more people approve of the criminal and civil contempt charges against Holder than they do of President Obama and an overwhelming majority believe the administration should answer all questions related to the operation.
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