Stephanie Cutter, President Obama’s spokeswoman hit by Team Romney for making “out of control” charges that the GOP candidate is a liar, today stepped up her assault on Mitt Romney, charging that he is using a “pattern of secrecy” to hide critical details of his finances from American voters.
Far from backing off, Cutter doubled down in an email that raises questions about Romney’s offshore bank accounts and whether he has been honest about detailing his time at Bain Capital.
“The more everyone finds out about Mitt Romney's finances, the more questions they have. Perhaps that's why he's hiding as much as he thinks he can get away with,” she wrote.
On Thursday, she was rapped by the Romney campaign for suggesting that the candidate had violated federal law by not properly reporting the time he was in charge of Bain. He has said he left in 1999, but the Boston Globe reported on documents that showed he stayed until 2002. The impact: It was after 1999 that the Obama campaign claims Bain pushed investments to ship jobs overseas, making Obama’s case that Romney outsourced jobs, a key fight between the two campaigns. Romney rejects the charges.
Cutter’s email also included a graphic listing the “five facts about Romney’s secrecy.” The email is below:
Friend --
The more everyone finds out about Mitt Romney's finances, the more questions they have. Perhaps that's why he's hiding as much as he thinks he can get away with.
Today, The Boston Globe reported that Romney was still running Bain Capital two years after he claims he left the firm, directly contradicting his campaign's denial that he was involved in deals that led to layoffs, bankruptcies, and American jobs getting shipped overseas.
It's a pattern of secrecy, and this is just the latest example of him trying to hide the truth from voters. There are a number of issues in play right now -- and voters deserve answers:
1) Mitt Romney refuses to release multiple years of taxes, ignoring decades of precedent.
2) He won't disclose his "bundlers," the people raising millions for his campaign.
3) He is the sole owner of a questionable shell corporation in Bermuda.
4) Until recently, Romney kept cash in a Swiss bank account.
5) According to the Globe, he hasn't been honest about when he was running Bain Capital, even though legal documents refute his claims.
Please forward this email and share this with everyone you know who cares about the outcome of this election.
Everyone deserves the right to judge for themselves whether Romney's motivations, experience, and perspective are what they want in a president. But Mitt Romney doesn't want people to have the information they need to make those judgments.
More to come,
Stephanie
Stephanie Cutter
Deputy Campaign Manager
Obama for America
