WASHINGTON -- As the GOP presidential candidate faced pressure over the past year to release more financial information, it was widely presumed that at some point he would buckle and follow a tradition started by his father, who released 12 years of tax returns. People who knew him, however, warned that there was no chance he'd release the returns.
They were right. Mitt Romney made it. But the journey has left him broken and battered.
For the first time in presidential politics, the words "Cayman Islands" and "Swiss Bank account" became campaign catch-phrases. President Barack Obama's team produced a blistering ad featuring tropical locations and press clippings of stories about Romney’s aggressive tax avoidance. Did Romney receive amnesty under an IRS program for UBS tax cheats? Did he illegally manipulate foreign tax credits? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid claimed to have been told by a source who invests with Bain Capital that Romney did not pay federal income taxes for a decade. Bain Capital executives told HuffPost that Romney never would have run for president if he'd thought he'd have to release his tax returns. As the pummeling continued, Haley Barbour, Michael Steele, Rick Perry, Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), and other prominent conservatives said Romney should just release some earlier tax returns and end the abuse.
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