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Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs tried unsuccessfully on Monday to get Romney campaign adviser Dan Senor to explain why his candidate would not release more tax returns to prove he had broken no laws by hiding money in Swiss bank accounts and a secret Bermuda corporation.

"It was reported that Mitt Romney has taken pretty extraordinary steps to hide the fact that he has a shell corporation in Bermuda," Gibbs explained during a panel with Senor on MSNBC. "We know as a result of good investigating reporting that he's had a bank account in Switzerland and he's got investments in the Caymans."

"Is somebody who has sheltered their income taxes in Switzerland and the Caymans and Bermuda really somebody who's going to get under the hood and get us to a place of tax fairness?" he wondered. "We need to know why he's got that money there. The American people deserve to know if he's sheltering this money somewhere or, quite frankly, is not paying the taxes that he owes. And the only way to do that, quite honestly, is to release more tax returns and show the American people."

Senor responded that Gibbs' assertion was "stunningly dishonest."

"There's nothing secretive about these accounts," Senor said. "The reason we know about these accounts is because they are in the tax returns Mitt Romney released and they were in the federal disclosure form that Mitt Romney -- financial disclosure form that Mitt Romney submitted. ... Are you suggesting that Mitt Romney is guilty of some kind of felony here?"

"Dan, what I'm suggesting is nobody has any idea because the only person with the tax returns is Mitt Romney," Gibbs explained. "Let's understand that the day before Mitt Romney became governor of Massachusetts, he transferred the ownership of this shell corporation in Bermuda to his wife in order to not have to disclose it. The day before he came governor of Massachusetts! The notion that Mitt Romney has been transparent about the fact that he has offshored money all over this world is patently ridiculous, OK?"

Gibbs added: "But look, Dan, I don't know if he's paid money. I don't know if he's getting a tax break. I don't know if he's sheltering money. He gave 23 years of tax returns to John McCain's vetting committee when he wanted to be vice president of the United States. That vetting committee picked Sarah Palin and not Mitt Romney. Did they do that because something they saw in 23 years of tax returns? Why give John McCain 23 years of tax returns and give the American people 2 years of tax returns?"

But instead of addressing the tax returns, Senor pivoted to an Obama campaign ad that Factcheck.org said determined had "thinly supported" claims about Romney outsourcing jobs while he was running Bain Capital.

"But why not release the tax returns?" MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski interrupted.

"Can we call a spade [a spade]?" Senor objected. "Talking about wanting to change the subject, this wave of attacks against Mitt Romney is a distraction from the real discussion, which is we're in a jobs crisis and we're not talking about jobs."

"Dan, release the tax returns," Gibbs pressed. "Put all this to rest. If Mitt Romney's not hiding something in Bermuda and Switzerland and the Caymans, it'll be in the tax returns. Why not simply do it?"

"It sounds like no one -- including you -- are not suggesting based on what he's released in those accounts, he has not paid his taxes fully, he's not paid the taxes that he's owed," Senor replied.

"Why does he have these corporations?" Gibbs continued. "Dan, do you have secret Cayman account? Do you have a company in Bermuda? Do you have a Swiss bank account?"

"This is a distraction from the real issue!" Senor insisted.

"Eventually Dan will answer the question," Gibbs quipped. "It will probably be in reruns."

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Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) struggled on Sunday to explain presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's investments outside the United States, including Swiss bank accounts and a corporation in Bermuda.

During an interview with ABC's Terry Moran, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) ripped into Romney for betting "against America" with his foreign investments.

"President Obama is not running against the Almighty, he is running against the alternative," O'Malley explained. "And the alternative in this case is Gov. Mitt Romney, who had the 47th worst job-creation rate as governor, and also has a penchant, a talent for offshoring American jobs -- sending them overseas. And also maintaining offshore bank accounts in Bermuda, Swiss bank accounts."

The Maryland governor added: "I've never known of a Swiss bank account to build an American bridge, a Swiss bank account to create American jobs, or Swiss bank accounts to rebuild the levies to protect the people of New Orleans. That's not an economic strategy for moving our country forward."

Moran asked Jindal if it was even fair for voters to consider Romney's investments outside the U.S.

"The bottom line is I'm thrilled Mitt Romney has been successful in the private sector," Jindal demurred.

"Is it OK for voters to consider the money he has put outside of the country in tax havens offshore, in secret Bermuda companies?" Moran pressed. "Does that make sense for voters to consider?"

"I think voters will consider all the distractions put out by the Obama campaign," Jindal quipped. "At the end of the day, this election is about two fundamental choices. It's about President Obama, who wants to continue to spend money we don't have, incurred now a trillion dollar-plus deficit every year he's been president after he promised we'd cut the deficit in half."

But O'Malley quickly disagreed that the Obama campaign was throwing "sand in the eyes of the American voters" to divert attention away from the president's record.

"No, it's not a distraction at all," O'Malley insisted. "The relevance is this, that Gov. Romney can't claim that his state was actually great at creating jobs when he was governor so he's fallen back and said, 'Vote for me, I was a business man, I created jobs.' You want to talk about going the way of Europe? What went the way of Europe were the Swiss bank accounts and the American dollars that Mitt Romney stuffed in that offshore Swiss bank account, jobs that he facilitated companies in moving offshore, out of places like Ohio, out of Pennsylvania and Maryland."

"This is a fundamental disagreement between two different candidates and their vision for our county's future," he continued. "Barack Obama believes enough in our country to be willing to work for it and invest in it. Mitt Romney bets against America. He bet against America when he put his money in Swiss bank accounts and tax havens and shelters and also set up the secret company, the shell company in Bermuda. Which by the way in order to avoid disclosure, he put in his wife's name right before he became governor of Massachusetts."

"These are legitimate questions that a man who is holding himself as wanting to lead our country forward needs to answer."

Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs on Sunday called for Romney to release several years of tax returns to prove that he was not dodging tax laws.

"The one thing he could do, Candy, to clear up whether or not he’s done anything illegal, whether he’s shielding his income from taxes in either Bermuda or Switzerland is to do what every other presidential candidate has done, and that’s release a series of years of their own tax returns," Gibbs told CNN's Candy Crowley. "This is a guy whose slogan is ‘Believe in America’ and it should be ‘Business in Bermuda.’ That’s what Mitt Romney is all about."

(h/t: Talking Points Memo)