Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, a Democrat and potential 2016 presidential candidate, will host a fundraiser in Maryland on Wednesday for 2013 Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Terry McAuliffe. This comes less than a year after O’Malley assailed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney for not releasing tax returns and being associated with ventures that use tax shelters abroad. McAuliffe, who has been described as being as out-of-touch as Romney with working class voters but less successful in the private sector, has not released his tax returns.
According to BuzzFeed, O’Malley said last year that Romney’s failure to release his tax returns was a “a bit of an implicit admission of…guilt.” As Virginia’s Republican Party noted, O’Malley also said Romney “bet against America” with his offshore accounts. Despite that, O’Malley is now hosting a fundraiser for McAuliffe, who is inextricably tied to a green car company whose parent company in incorporated in the “tax shelter country” of the British Virgin Islands, according to a Watchdog report.
“As they enjoy white wine and crab cakes tonight, Governor O’Malley has a golden opportunity to urge his friend Terry McAuliffe to finally demonstrate that he has nothing to hide and release his tax returns,” said Virginia Republican Party spokesman Jahan Wilcox in a statement. “Governor O’Malley has made it clear, a candidate’s failure to release his or her tax returns is an implicit admission of guilt. Every minute that McAuliffe waits to make that information public, is another minute that has Virginia voters wondering what Terry is hiding.”
While O’Malley has been governor of Maryland, Marylanders have been moving to the more economically-friendly Virginia in droves. O’Malley has also been wracked by various prison and crime scandals associated with his administration’s handling of the Baltimore’s prison system.