Harry Reid floats claim that Romney didn't pay taxes for 10 years

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid used the T-shirt gun of unsubstantiated claims in an interview with The Huffington Post, saying a former Bain investor told him that Mitt Romney didn't pay taxes for 10 years, hence the lack of disclosure:

"His poor father must be so embarrassed about his son," Reid said, in reference to George Romney's standard-setting decision to turn over 12 years of tax returns when he ran for president in the late 1960s. Saying he had "no problem with somebody being really, really wealthy," Reid sat up in his chair a bit before stirring the pot further. A month or so ago, he said, a person who had invested with Bain Capital called his office. "Harry, he didn't pay any taxes for 10 years," Reid recounted the person as saying. "He didn't pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that's true? Well, I'm not certain," said Reid. "But obviously he can't release those tax returns. How would it look? "You guys have said his wealth is $250 million," Reid went on. "Not a chance in the world. It's a lot more than that. I mean, you do pretty well if you don't pay taxes for 10 years when you're making millions and millions of dollars."

And from the campaign:

Asked for a response to Reid's latest comments, Romney campaign adviser Kevin Madden said his candidate had "gone above and beyond the disclosure requirements by releasing two years of personal tax returns in addition to the hundreds of pages of personal financial disclosure documents he has provided to the FEC and made public." Madden added that it was "troubling and disappointing that Senator Reid would cite Governor Romney's father, George, as part of a personal attack against the governor. We have many substantive disagreements with the senator and his policies, but using insults about a father-son relationship is a step too far."

Reid did not identify his alleged source. And questions about Romney's taxes have remained. But this is a bit reminiscent of Billy Shaheen talking about Barack Obama and drugs back in January 2008 — it tosses an explosive topic into the conversation, even in unsubstantiated form. It's worth noting that Romney's camp recently told Alex that it's "not true" that the candidate ever had a year of paying zero taxes.

* This post has been updated

Maggie Haberman is senior political reporter for Politico.