Romney uses Reid's playbook, slimes Trump on taxes

Mitt Romney

Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is now using a page out of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's playbook to attack Donald Trump.

Romney appeared on Fox News' "Your World With Neil Cavuto" on Wednesday and claimed – without proof – that a "bombshell" may be lurking in Trump's taxes. The comment mirrors the 2012 attack Reid leveled against Romney from the Senate floor during President Obama's re-election campaign.

Trump released 92-pages of financial disclosure records last July, which included $1.4 billion in assets and $265 million in liabilities. All candidates are required to release such reports dating back through one calendar year.

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"I think we have good reason to believe that there's a bombshell in Donald Trump’s taxes," the former Massachusetts governor told host Neil Cavuto. "Either he is not anywhere near as wealthy as he says he is, or he hasn't been paying the kind of taxes we would expect him to pay, or perhaps he hasn't been giving money to the vets or the disabled like he has been telling us he’s been doing. The reason I think there is a bombshell in there is because every time he is asked about his taxes, he dodges and delays and says, 'Well, we’re working on it.' Hey we’re not talking about the taxes that are coming due this year. We are talking about taxes already filed, back taxes."

Reid was asked in March 2015 by CNN's Dana Bash if he regretted making unsubstantiated claims about Romney's taxes.

"Romney didn't win, did he?" said Reid, Mediaite reported March 21, 2015.

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The conservative website Hotair said it is possible that Romney wants to discourage Republican congressmen from endorsing Trump in the wake of his landslide caucus win in Nevada.

"[California Rep.] Duncan Hunter and [New York Rep.] Chris Collins aren’t prominent members of Congress but any public movement among the GOP leadership towards Trump right now is dangerous for Rubio because it signals to voters that the race is ending and Trump, the loose cannon, is acceptable to the political class," Hotair's Allahpundit wrote. "Romney's trying to put the brakes on with other would-be endorsers here by suggesting that Trump has liabilities that they don’t know about yet."

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Trump didn't wait to hit back at Romney via Twitter.

"Mitt Romney, who totally blew an election that should have been won and whose tax returns made him look like a fool, is now playing tough guy," said Trump. "When Mitt Romney asked me for my endorsement last time around, he was so awkward and goofy that we all should have known he could not win!"

Alex Leary, Washington bureau chief for the Tampa Bay Times, announced shortly after Trump's tweets that Florida Sen. Marco Rubio plans to release his tax returns over the weekend.

Later in the day in an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, Trump said he gets audited "every single year," and that his returns are "very complex,"

"I'll make a determination in the next couple of months," he said regarding release of the tax documents.

Trump rejected Romney's accusation out of hand, saying "there is no bombshell at all other than I pay a lot of tax and the government wastes the money."