Reid aid claims source, then retracts

[druidp]

www.examiner.com/article/reid-aide-claims-republican-said-romney-paid-no-taxes-then-retracts-claim

Who is the mystery person who allegedly told Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) that Mitt Romney paid no taxes for ten years?

Jose Parra, a top aide to the Senate Majority Leader, told a Los Angeles radio station that Reid's source “is an investor in Bain Capital, a Republican also, and somebody who has been dealing with Romney’s company for a long, long time and he has direct knowledge on this,” Newsmax reported Friday.

But the Huffington Post said Friday that Parra retracted the claim that the alleged person is a Republican.

"Parra now says he doesn't know whether Reid's source is Republican," Ryan Grim wrote.

"I do not know the party affiliation of the source, how long he invested with Bain, or his relationship to Romney beyond the fact that he was an investor with Bain Capital, as Senator Reid has previously stated," Parra reportedly said in an email.

"If, in fact, the mystery man exists in temporal reality rather than merely in some fugue state Reid enters whenever he gets really excited about scoring a political point, let him come forward and offer his evidence," observed a post at the conservative blog Hot Air.

Reid made the claim, offering absolutely no proof whatsoever. Later, he said several people told him the same thing, but again offered no proof.

"No, that's the best you're going to get from me," he told reporters.

Reid also said the burden of proof was on Romney, and he said the media should do his dirty work for him.

"What if he has paid no taxes, like I am saying he hasn't," Reid told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "What if he has all these moneys as we already know ... in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Swiss banks. I mean, gee whiz, rather than ask me why I should do this, that is a story you should be writing."

On July 31, Politifact rated Reid's allegation "Pants on Fire," writing:

Reid has produced no evidence to back up his claim other than attribution to a shadowy anonymous source. Romney has denied the claim, and tax experts back him up, saying that the nature of Romney's investments in Bain make it highly unlikely he would have been able to avoid paying taxes altogether -- especially for 10 years.

Romney has insisted Reid either "put up or shut up" about the claim, but the Majority Leader has refused to back away from his allegations.

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Oh and as far as burden of proof - the IRS is just a phone call away from the Executive branch. Shocking why no one in the IRS has come forward yet saying, "Oh ya, he's totally jerking us over by not paying taxes. We just hadn't gotten around to auditing or pursuing him about it yet."