RENO, Nev. — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is accusing President Barack Obama of leaking for political gain classified details about the U.S. military raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
Romney was to level his accusation Tuesday afternoon during an address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention, his strongest indictment yet of Obama’s foreign policy in a close race in which the Republican has largely focused on the nation’s sluggish economy.
“This conduct is contemptible. It betrays our national interest. It compromises our men and women in the field,” Romney says, according to speech excerpts released by his campaign. “And it demands a full and prompt investigation, with explanation and consequence.”
The White House did not immediately respond to Romney’s accusations.
Obama vehemently has rejected the notion that his administration has leaked classified information. At a White House news conference in June, he called such allegations “offensive.”
Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said Romney was resorting to “cheap attacks” on the president “that lack credibility rather than answering the most basic questions about his foreign policy agenda.”
The Democratic leader of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein, said Monday that the White House appears to be responsible for some leaks of classified information. But the California senator also said she was certain Obama, who receives a daily intelligence briefing, was not disclosing secret information.