Failed Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Wednesday urged current GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney to release his tax records and prove that he had created more than 100,000 jobs as the head of Bain Capital.

In an interview on Fox & Friends earlier this month, Romney said that he had “helped create over 100,000 new jobs” during his time as a business consultant.

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Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom later told The Washington Post that those figures included all the jobs created by companies that Bain had helped to grow, not necessarily during the period Romney worked at Bain.

“His campaign offered no definitive proof that Bain added more jobs than it eliminated while Romney headed the firm,” the Post‘s Josh Hicks wrote in November.

In recent days, a super PAC supporting former House Speaker Newt Gingrich released a film attacking Romney’s record at Bain, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry has called the venture capital firm “vutures.”

“I think what Gov. Perry is getting at is that Gov. Romney has claimed to have created 100,000 jobs at Bain and people are wanting to know, is there proof of that claim?” Palin told Fox News host Sean Hannity Wednesday. “And was it U.S. jobs created for United States citizens?”

“Nobody should be surprised that things about Bain Capital and maybe tax returns not being released yet and maybe some records not being as transparently provided as voters deserve to see right now, don’t be surprised that that’s all coming out today because it would come out as an October surprise had the GOP candidates not brought those out today,” she added.

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“It’s kind of like some come-to-Jesus moments for some of these candidates, and that’s healthy and that’s good.”

Speaking to reporters at Cherokee Trikes & More in Greer, South Carolina Thursday, Romney dismissed criticism over his lack of transparency.

“Staples, Bright Horizons Children’s Centers, the Sports Authority, Steel Dynamics — those four alone added well over 100,000 jobs,” he explained. “And then the press has also reported on businesses that have lost employment, and that was a few thousand jobs that were lost.”

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“I think anytime a job is lost, it’s a tragedy,” the candidate admitted. “For the family, for the individual that loses the job, it’s just devastating. And every time we invested in a business, it was to try to encourage that business to have ongoing life. The idea of making a short-term profit doesn’t really exist in business.”

Watch this video from Fox News’ Hannity, broadcast Jan. 11, 2012.

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(H/T: Big Government)