By Catalina Camia, USA TODAY
Mitt Romney is brushing off Rahm Emanuel's claim that he's "whining" about attacks made by President Obama.
"Well,
I think when people accuse you of a crime you have a reason to go after
them pretty hard, and I'm going to continue going after him," Romney
said today on Fox News. "What does it say about a president whose record
is so poor that all he can do in the campaign is attack me?"
Romney charged Obama with running a campaign based on "falsehood and dishonesty."
The
Republican went on to say it "stinks to high heaven" that Obama's
campaign donors have benefited from their ties to the president and
White House. He is sounding a theme of political cronyism that his
campaign intends to play up over and over this week.
Chicago Mayor Emanuel, a former Obama chief of staff, said Sunday that the presumptive GOP presidential nominee should "stop whining" about the Obama campaign's attacks on his record at Bain Capital.
Obama
deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter had suggested Romney committed
a felony for stating one thing on government documents but saying
another about his tenure at the private equity firm.
Also in his
Fox news interview, Romney deflected calls to release more than two
years of tax filings and turned the question back to a criticism of
Obama's campaign tactics. He said John McCain and John Kerry weren't
called on in their respective presidential campaigns to release multiple
years of tax returns.
"The Obama people keep on wanting more and
more and more -- more things to pick through, more things for their
opposition research to try to make a mountain out of and to distort and
to be dishonest about," Romney said.