The Globe reported last Friday that, according to Summit County, Utah, tax records, [ROMNEY] had personally paid the tax bills in 1999 and 2000, and his wife, Ann, had paid in 2001. However, cancelled checks provided by the Romney campaign show that although Romney himself paid in 1999, his wife signed the checks in 2000 and 2001.

Democratic Party chairman Philip W. Johnston called the Romney ad blitz an "incredible overreaction" to the residency challenge and said Romney, not the Democrats, had created the problem. Johnston also said Romney had told a "baldfaced lie" when he originally told reporters he filed income tax returns as a resident of Massachusetts when living in Utah. Romney later acknowledged he had not filed as a resident, but amended those returns to claim resident status after he decided to run for governor.

Also yesterday, Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom, after denying it earlier in the week, confirmed that a lawyer for the Romney campaign had contacted Harvard Law School constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe, seeking help with Romney's defense to the residency challenge. Fehrnstrom, however, said the lawyer who called Tribe advises Romney on campaign finance, not residency.