The public 'ought to know' about the candidate's overseas accounts, Clinton said. Bill Clinton: Attacks on Mitt are legit

Bill Clinton says Mitt Romney’s record at Bain is “relevant” to investigate because the Republican is running for president on his business experience.

NBC’s Savannah Guthrie asked Clinton in an interview taped Thursday and aired Friday whether he feels Romney’s overseas investments are a “legitimate line of attack” and “relevant to his fitness to be president.”


“Oh, yes I do. I think, for one thing, it’s just as relevant as the going over my record as governor got when I ran for president,” Clinton said in the interview on the “Today” show. “I’d been governor for a dozen years. And because he’s put it at the forefront. He’s said basically, ‘I’d be a better president because I know how to create jobs because that’s what I did.’ And he’s going to take credit for running a successful Olympics, for example. So then all your work life before you run for president is relevant, and I think that will be relevant.”

But he added that Romney’s decision not to release his tax returns, unlike other former candidates, “perplexed” him. “That struck me as a little odd,” Clinton said.

And the American public “ought to know” about Romney’s overseas accounts, Clinton said.

“The voters can make up their own minds about whether they think it’s a good thing for a person who wants to be president to minimize his own tax liability,” Clinton said.