I was just out running a quick errand and I happened to hear a small portion of Sean Hannity's interview of Mitt Romney. The subject turned to Romney's tax returns and his accounts in the Cayman Islands. Romney then let fly with a major bombshell: When Romney ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002, he put all of his assets into a blind trust which is still in place. In other words, since 2002, Romney has had nothing to do with where his funds have been invested. Romney confirmed that he does not know what the investments are or have been. He does know that in 2008, there was one investment that had accounts in the Cayman Islands because his trustee was asked about that during the 2008 campaign; other than that, Romney knows nothing about the Cayman accounts. Indeed, Romney cannot tell us why his tax rate is at the level it is, since he does not know the source of essentially all of his income.
Let's translate this into English:
1) ABC News ran an "expose" about the existence of Romney's accounts in the Cayman Islands; that report was complete BS and ABC News had to know that. Obviously, ABC News knew that Romney had his assets in a blind trust; it was discussed in 2008. Moreover, ABC could have asked the Romney campaign before running the story. Particularly since the Cayman Island issue was discussed in the 2008 campaign, ABC News must have the information right in its own files.
2) Romney has been having trouble dealing with his own tax returns since he actually does not know most of the data on those returns. This explains a great deal.
There is one question left about all this, however. I have to wonder why Romney did not remind all of us that he had his assets in a blind trust for the last ten years. That statement immediately destroys almost all of the issues swirling around Romney and his taxes and Cayman accounts. The failure to mention this shows Romney in a poor light, but it is a great improvement from worries about what the taxes or the Cayman accounts might show.
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