Pornographer Flynt Seeks Exposure Of A Different Kind: Offers $1 Million Dollars For Information About Romney’s Tax Returns

Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler magazine, notorious for its sexually explicit content, has announced that anyone who can provide him with the financial details of Mitt Romney tax returns will be richer by a million dollars.

Flynt has fought many high profile legal battles and run for public office a number of times. A controversial figure, he has been married five times and a failed assassination attempt, more than 30 years ago, left him paralyzed from the waist down.

His magazine is bringing out two full page advertisements in the The Washington Post on Sunday, and USA Today on Tuesday. The magazine released a press release saying that it was “offering up to a million dollars in cash for documented evidence concerning Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s unreleased tax returns and/or details of his offshore assets, bank accounts and business partnerships.”

That Mitt Romney is no friend of Larry Flynt is no secret, given that the former has said that if he came to power he would crack down on pornography.

Whilst Flynt brushed that off as election gimmickry and called it an “idle threat.” His latest attention-grabber will serve a dual purpose – it will keep the issue of Romney’s financial documents alive and garner publicity for his magazine and may also entice computer hacks to redouble their efforts and unearth the elusive documents.

Romney has steadfastly refused to release his tax documents, beyond 2010, which he has already made public, along with an estimate of his 2011 tax liability. He alleges that his returns would provide material for the Democrats to criticize him.

Another reason he gave why he wants to keep his papers private is that it would tantamount to bragging about your charitable donations.

“Our church doesn’t publish how much people have given. This is done entirely privately. One of the downsides of releasing one’s financial information is that this is now all public, but we had never intended our contributions to be known. It’s a very personal thing between ourselves and our commitment to our God and to our church,” Romney has said in a to-be-published interview

Romney has told that over the last decade he has never paid less than 13 percent in taxes. He has also paid in excess of $4 million dollars to the LDS Church. His Charitable foundation also donated nearly $5 million to his faith. Romney said, “Every year I’ve paid at least 13 percent and if you add in addition the amount that goes to charity, why the number gets well above 20 percent.”

Flynt has a past history of indulging in such publicity stunts. A monetary offer in 2007 heralded the end of Republican Senator David Vitter’s political career, for information revealed that he was connected to a prostitution ring. Last year Flynt offered a million dollars for any information on Rick Perry’s sex life.

A few days ago a hacker group had claimed that they had access to stolen tax documents and were seeking ransom money of $1 million dollars. They had threatened that they would make the papers public if the money was not paid. The financial firm from which the hackers claim to have stolen the details, say that their data is secure and there is no evidence of any data having been hacked.

“What is he hiding?” Flynt said, “Maybe now we’ll find out.”