The Obama campaign won't ask Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to discontinue his accusations about Mitt Romney's taxes, even as Republicans pushed back hard against Reid's allegations on Sunday.
"I don't think anybody controls Harry Reid," said Robert Gibbs, a senior Obama campaign adviser, on CNN's State of the Union.
Reid has alleged that Romney has not paid taxes for the past 10 years, an accusation that gained steam over the past week as Reid took to the Senate floor to repeat what Republicans see as unfounded claims lobbed for purely political gain. South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham went so far as to call Reid a liar on the same show on Sunday.
Gibbs wouldn't say whether the Obama campaign would tell Reid to stop, asserting only that the Senator would do as he pleased.
Gibbs did say, however, that the debate surrounding Romney's taxes wasn't Reid's fault -- it was Romney's, as he continues to refuse to release more than two years of taxes, indicating, Gibbs said, that he's keeping something from the public.
"Have you ever seen anybody go to such great lengths to not put something out? And when you generally don't put something out, isn't it because you're generally hiding something?" he said.
Gibbs suggested Romney go to Kinko's, a store that provides office services, copy his returns and share them with the media to end the debate. He even offered to help Romney pay the copying expenses.
"I'll send him the nickels," he said. "I think it's a nickel a page."
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