Democrats Attack Romney’s Overseas Accounts

Mitt Romney’s financial holdings abroad have become a favorite point for Democrats aiming to put forward the view that the Republican candidate is an out-of-touch, wealthy business leader who has never had the nation’s best interest at heart. On the Sunday talk shows, President Obama's supporters raised questions about Romney’s finances and said it was time for the Republicans to release more of Romney's tax returns to make sure he isn’t hiding anything.

Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said Romney needs to release more than one year of tax returns, reports the Hill. She specifically qualified as “disturbing” a recent Vanity Fair article that details how the former governor has financial holdings in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. “Americans need to ask themselves, why does an American businessman need a Swiss bank account and secretive investments like that?” Wasserman Schultz said on Fox News Sunday.

She wasn’t alone in focusing on Switzerland. Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley told ABC News that Romney “bet against America when he put his money in Swiss bank accounts and tax havens and shelters and also set up a secret company, the shell company in Bermuda.” Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana appeared alongside O’Malley and called the questions over Romney’s finances one of the many “distractions thrown out by the Obama campaign.”

Yet Democrats clearly believe attacking Romney’s finances could have staying power. Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs also demanded that the former governor release more years of tax returns, but Gibbs went even further and said there isn’t enough information to know whether Romney has done anything illegal, points out Politico.

“The one thing he can do, Candy, to clear up whether or not he’s done anything illegally, whether he’s shielding his income from taxes in Bermuda or Switzerland, is to do whatever other presidential candidate has done and that’s to release a series of years of their own tax returns,” Gibbs told CNN host Candy Crowley. “The best way to see if Mitt Romney is complying with American tax law is to have him release more of his tax returns.”