Reince Preibus and Lindsey Graham use Sunday morning talk shows to denounce Senate leader's hounding of Romney
Republicans rounded on Senate leader Harry Reid on Sunday, calling him a "dirty liar" for suggesting that presidential candidate Mitt Romney paid no taxes for a decade.
Senator Lindsey Graham, speaking on CNN's State of the Union, said Reid was "making things up" about the tax claims. Republican national committee chairman Reince Preibus went further in his criticism, branding Reid "a dirty liar" on ABC's This Week.
"As far as Harry Reid is concerned... I'm not going to respond to a dirty liar who hasn't filed a single page of tax returns himself, complains about people with money but lives in the Ritz Carlton here [in Washington] down the street," Priebus said.
The attacks follow Reid's comments last week that an investor with Bain Capital, Romney's old private equity firm, had told him Romney paid no taxes for 10 years. "He didn't pay taxes for 10 years. Now, do I know that that's true? Well, I'm not certain," said Reid. "But obviously he can't release those tax returns. How would it look?"
"Harry Reid really has to put up or shut up," Romney said last week as he campaigned Nevada, Reid's home state. "I have paid taxes every year, and a lot of taxes, a lot of taxes."
Romney has made public his 2010 return, which shows he earned $21.7m and paid $3m in taxes and made close to $3m in tax-deductible charitable donations. He has said he will release his 2011 return once it is completed.
Democrats have seized on Reid's claims to further hammer Romney, despite their uncertain origins of the allegations. Last month, Obama's campaign aired ads in Pennsylvania that made similar claims about the Republican candidate.
Obama adviser David Axelrod told Fox News Sunday that "Romney can resolve this in 10 seconds". "What is it that he is hiding?" Axelrod asked. "They ought to release those tax returns and that would put all of this to rest."
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democratic national committee chairman, told ABC's This Week that Romney's taxes were "a question that has swirled around Mitt Romney for this entire campaign".
She said he could clear the issue up "lickety split" by releasing more tax returns.