For attacking his boss, Harry Reid's chief of staff also called the Republicans 'henchmen.' Reid's chief denounces 'cowards'

The war over Mitt Romney’s tax returns is getting more bitter by the moment, with a top aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid blasting Republicans as “cowards” and “henchmen” for their attacks on the Nevada Democrat.

“They’re a bunch of cowards, and they’re avoiding the issue,” said David Krone, Reid’s chief of staff, in an interview with POLITICO on Sunday night. “Lindsey Graham, Reince Priebus — they’re a bunch of henchmen for Romney, and they’re all reading off the same talking points. They couldn’t hold a candle to Harry Reid.”


Krone added: “What Harry Reid said is the fact of what he was told. To turn it around, all their childish rants this weekend about calling Reid a ‘liar’ and all that, it just shows you how scared they are that Harry Reid was telling the truth.”

( Also on POLITICO: Sununu: Obama behind Reid's claim)

Krone’s comments are the latest round in what has becoming an increasingly bitter — and personal fight — between Reid and Romney and Republicans over Reid’s assertion that Romney has not paid taxes for a decade.

Reid first made the charge in an interview with The Huffington Post on Tuesday, saying he was told this by an as-yet-unidentified investor in Bain Capital, the investment fund that Romney co-founded in 1984. Reid later repeated the claim on the Senate floor, infuriating the Romney campaign and GOP senators.

Krone said he knows the identity of who told this to Reid, describing the source as a “Bain investor” and “prominent, successful businessman,” but the Reid camp has declined to name the person.

Romney has vehemently denied Reid’s claim, telling the Nevada Democrat to “put up or shut up.”

“It’s untrue, dishonest and inaccurate. It’s wrong,” Romney declared in a radio interview.

But Reid — with private backing from the White House and President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign — has continued to stoke the controversy, challenging Romney to release his full tax returns. At this time, Romney has released only his 2010 tax return and an estimate for 2011. The 2010 return showed Romney paying a 13.9 percent tax rate on $21.6 million in income.

On the Sunday morning shows, Graham, a GOP senator from South Carolina, and Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman, attacked Reid personally, demonstrating the intensity surrounding the issue.

“I’m not going to respond to a dirty liar who hasn’t filed a single page of tax returns himself,” Priebus said on ABC’s “This Week” about Reid. “He complains about people with money, but lives in the Ritz Carlton here down the street.” Reid stays in the posh hotel when he is in Washington.

“I think he’s making things up,” Graham said of Reid during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I just cannot believe that the majority leader of the United States Senate would take the floor twice, make accusations that are absolutely unfounded, in my view, and quite frankly making things up to divert the campaign away from the real issues.”

When asked by CNN’s Candy Crowley to confirm that he had called Reid a liar, Graham said indeed he had.

“Who are these people to say Reid is not telling the truth?” Krone asked. “They’re not telling the truth.” Krone added that Romney had said, in an interview with ABC News, that he was going to provide additional information on his tax rate but then failed to provide that data.