Romney responds to Reid: ‘Put up or shut up’

Mitt Romney personally responded to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) today, telling the Democrat to offer some proof of his tax claims or stop making them.

“It’s time for Harry to put up or shut up,” Romney told Fox News Radio.

Audio via the Daily Caller:

For days, Reid has been claiming that Romney paid no taxes for 10 years, saying a Bain investor and others told him so. Romney called the accusation “totally and completely wrong” and accused the White House of orchestrating the attack.

“Harry’s going to have to describe who it is he spoke with because of course that’s totally and completely wrong,” he said. “It’s untrue, dishonest and inaccurate. It’s wrong. So I’m looking forward to have Harry reveal his sources, and we’ll probably find out it’s the White House.”

Reid responded in a statement that it was Romney who has “shut up” and now has the “obligation to put up, and release several years’ worth of tax returns.”

Earlier in the day, Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom offered his own sweeping denial and likened Reid’s accusations to the anti-Communist witch hunt conducted by Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.).

“His charges are baseless and untrue,” Fehrnstrom told the same radio station. “[T]his reminds me of the McCarthy hearings back in the 1950s, and it was another son from Massachusetts then, Joseph Welch, who finally asked the question that should be asked of Harry Reid, which is: Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

Romney has not released his tax returns from before 2010, leading Democrats to speculate that they contain hidden embarrassments. A recent Obama campaign ad said the Republican’s secrecy on the issue “makes you wonder if some years he paid any taxes at all.” But the president’s team has not said anything in support of Reid’s specific claims.