Democrats want Romney to explain offshore accounts

STEVE PEOPLES

Asso­ci­ated Press

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — Mitt Rom­ney pri­vately raised mil­lions of dol­lars from New York’s elite on Sun­day, as Democ­rats launched coor­di­nated attacks against the likely Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee, inten­si­fy­ing calls for him to explain off­shore bank accounts and release sev­eral years of tax returns.

The line of attack, dis­missed by the Rom­ney cam­paign as an “unfounded char­ac­ter assault,” fol­lows new reports that raise ques­tions about Romney’s per­sonal wealth, which could exceed $250 mil­lion. Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s re-election cam­paign is expected to push the strat­egy through­out the com­ing week, under­scor­ing their desire to por­tray Rom­ney as dis­con­nected from the middle-class vot­ers he needs to win the presidency.

“He’s the first and only can­di­date for the pres­i­dent of the United States with a Swiss bank account, with tax shel­ters, with tax avoid­ance schemes that involve so many for­eign coun­tries,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” He’s one of sev­eral high-profile Democ­rats who spoke out on the Sun­day morn­ing news shows.

Rom­ney may have unin­ten­tion­ally helped the Obama campaign.

Repub­li­can donors dri­ving Mer­cedes, Bent­leys — and in one case a candy red 2013 Fer­rari Spi­der — crowded into a series of closed-door Rom­ney fundrais­ers in the Hamp­tons, New York’s exclu­sive string of water­front com­mu­ni­ties on Long Island’s South Shore. Wall Street bankers and bro­ker­age house chiefs, among oth­ers, make the area their week­end play­ground. Romney’s Hamp­tons swing fol­lows a week­long vaca­tion at his lake­side vaca­tion home in New Hampshire.

Vot­ers are split on whether they trust Rom­ney or Obama more to run the nation’s econ­omy, but a major­ity says that Obama bet­ter under­stands their concerns.

The Hamp­tons crowd, how­ever, saw things differently.

“I think he’s a plain talk­ing guy,” Peter Cohen said, refer­ring to Rom­ney. Cohen, the for­mer Shear­son Lehman Broth­ers chief who now heads his own invest­ment bank­ing firm, made the com­ment as he chewed a cigar in his black Range Rover out­side a Rom­ney fundraiser expected to gen­er­ate $3 million.

Romney’s day con­cluded at the Southamp­ton estate of bil­lion­aire indus­tri­al­ist David Koch, where donors were asked to give $50,000 per per­son or $75,000 per cou­ple. The event attracted pro­test­ers like Robert Shain­wald, a 65-year-old retired teacher.

“Rom­ney has no idea what the work­ing person’s daily con­cerns are. How could he?” Shain­wald said as he waved a sign offer­ing free veg­eta­bles to any­one who wasn’t a billionaire.

Rom­ney would be among the nation’s rich­est pres­i­dents if elected. He made his for­tune at Bain Cap­i­tal, a Boston-based pri­vate equity firm that has become a key part of the argu­ment for his White House bid. He hasn’t drawn a reg­u­lar pay­check in more than a decade, how­ever, and has instead lived off a series of investments.

But Rom­ney has refused to release more than two years of tax returns that would out­line those invest­ments, break­ing from a prece­dent set by his father, for­mer Michi­gan Gov. George Rom­ney, who released 12 years of his tax returns when he sought the pres­i­dency a gen­er­a­tion ago. And an Asso­ci­ated Press report recently raised ques­tions about a pre­vi­ously undis­closed Bermuda-based com­pany included in Romney’s port­fo­lio until the day before he became Mass­a­chu­setts governor.

Obama adviser Robert Gibbs said Rom­ney could eas­ily clear up ques­tions about his per­sonal finances if he sim­ply released “a series of years” of returns.

“Mitt Romney’s father was the pio­neer for releas­ing a series of tax returns,” Gibbs said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” ”The best way to fig­ure out if Mitt Rom­ney is com­ply­ing with Amer­i­can tax law is to have him release more of his tax returns.”

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jin­dal, con­sid­ered to be in the run­ning for Romney’s vice pres­i­den­tial hunt, strug­gled to defend the off­shore finan­cial activ­ity on ABC’s “This Week,” dis­miss­ing the crit­i­cism as “a dis­trac­tion from the Obama cam­paign.” And a Rom­ney spokesman sug­gested the new attack was inappropriate.

“The Obama campaign’s lat­est unfounded char­ac­ter assault on Mitt Rom­ney is unseemly and dis­gust­ing,” spokesman Andrea Saul said. “Mitt Rom­ney had a suc­cess­ful career in the pri­vate sec­tor, pays every dime of taxes he owes, has given gen­er­ously to char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tions and served numer­ous causes greater than himself.”

The new push by Obama and his allies comes two days after the release of a lack­lus­ter jobs report that said the nation’s unem­ploy­ment rate was stuck at 8.2 per­cent. Rom­ney has been largely focused on the econ­omy through­out his cam­paign, an issue that vot­ers over­whelm­ingly report will be on the top of their minds come Elec­tion Day.

Some high-profile Repub­li­cans have recently crit­i­cized Rom­ney for not being spe­cific enough on his eco­nomic plans. And some fear that the Repub­li­can cam­paign is not being aggres­sive enough in defend­ing his busi­ness career and per­sonal wealth.

But Rom­ney didn’t have to defend his back­ground in the Hamptons.

“This coun­try is about busi­ness,” said Cohen, the invest­ment banker. “Mitt Rom­ney under­stands business.”

Posted by AP News on Jul 8 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.