Romney Pelts Obama Campaign for 'Dishonesty'

(Newsroom America) -- Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Monday rapped President Obama for running a "campaign based on falsehood and dishonesty," while at the same time dismissing calls from some conservatives for him to release his tax records.

"A campaign based on falsehood and dishonesty does not have long legs," Romney said during an interview on Fox News' "Fox and Friends" program.

He added later, "The president only has one thing going, and that is constant attacks on me. They’re dishonest. They’re misdirected. And I think the American people recognize that kind of politics as something of the past. It may work in Chicago, but it’s not going to work across America."

Regarding calls for him to release more tax returns, Romney said doing so would only give the Obama camp "more things to pick through, more things for their opposition research to make a mountain out of, and to distort and to be dishonest about."

In response, Romney tossed the issue of transparency back in the president's corner, hitting his administration for potentially covering up damaging information regarding the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms' disastrous "gun-walking" operation known as Fast and Furious.

"If we want to talk about transparency, the real issue is, why has this president used his presidential power and executive privilege to keep the information about the Fast and Furious program from being explained to the American people?" Romney said.

The murders of two federal agents have been linked to the operation.

A House panel has been investigating what role Attorney General Eric Holder may have played in the operation, what he knew about it and when. The Justice Department has turned over scores of documents related to the operation that were requested by the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, but not others sought by its chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

Rather than turn those final documents over, Obama claimed executive privilege and extended it to Holder.

In an effort to move on from a week in which Romney's time at his former investment firm, Bain Capital, dominated news cycles, his campaign rolled out a new broadside of attack ads at Obama, accusing his administration of handing out favors to political allies at the expense of Middle Class families.

"I think it’s wrong. I think it stinks to high heaven. I think the administration has to explain how it is they would consider giving money to campaign contributors," Romney said.

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