One of the many things missing in the entertaining saga of Mitt Romney's allegedly stolen tax returns was someone willing to pay the $1 million ransom that the hackers were asking for: enter Hustler publisher Larry Flynt who is offering $1 million for Romney's returns. Hackers, the ball is in your court.

Flynt ran this reward notice (right) in the Sunday edition of the Washington Post and will run it again in the Tuesday edition of USA Today. As we've seen in the past, Flynt's offer of political bounties is nothing new. As ABC News reports, in 2011 he posted a similar offer  for anyone who had information on Rick Perry's supposed infidelity and in 2007 was a thorn in the side of then-Senator David Ritter thanks to some prostitution rumors. But yesterday's ad and Tuesday's pending ad in major newspapers come on the heels of sort-of-hard-to-believe news of hackers physically setting up shop in PricewaterhouseCoopers' Tennessee office and coming away with Romney's tax returns. (For what it's worth, The Secret Service and the FBI are currently investigating the claim.) And Flynt is offering exactly what the hackers were asking for--$1 million dollars (which, considering the magnitude of what a Romney tax return might mean to this election and the perpetual ties between $1 million dollars and Austin Powers's Doctor even, seemed laughable at the time). Of course we have no idea if Flynt is actually talking to the hackers, but there would make some sort of sense if a porn publisher was the one to take up the offer of a goofy group that's claimed staging a break-in of Mission Impossible proportions to get Romney's tax info. We remain skeptical of either side of the putative mark.

Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at aabadsantos at theatlantic dot com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.
Alexander Abad-Santos