Man Who Taped Romney's 47% Speech Will Finally Reveal Himself

Dashiell Bennett 5,690 Views Mar 13, 2013

Later today, Americans will finally get to meet the cater-waiter who recored and then leaked the video revealing Mitt Romney's now infamous "47 percent" comments. The man, whose identity is being withheld until he appears on MSNBC's "The Ed Show" on Wednesday night, was a bartender who was working at the Romney fundraiser in May 2012. And in another twist of the political knife, he says he was inspired to tape the event because Bill Clinton was super nice to him once.

The bartender told The Huffington Post that he had previously worked a similar event at a private home where the former president was speaking. After his speech, Clinton took the time to share his legendary personal charm with all people working the event. He went into the kitchen to thank the staff for all their hard work, and even stuck around to sign autographs and take photos. The bartender says he brought his camera to the Romney event expecting the same level of hospitality. (Romney showed up late and left early, failing to gladhand with the little people.)

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The bartender says Romney never told the staff that the meeting was off the record, though if they were in the room they probably heard it. (And we don't know what his employer's rules were about confidentiality.) He also claims he wasn't planning to release the tape ... until he heard Romney say that Obama's voters are the 47 percent of Americans "who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it." That was what led him to post clips on online and eventually turn the whole tape over to Mother Jones reporter David Corn.

"I felt it was a civic duty. I couldn't sleep after I watched it," he said. "I felt like I had a duty to expose it."  

The bartender's face and name will be revealed tonight when MSNBC airs a taped interview with him and host Ed Schultz. "The Ed Show" airs at 8:00 and 11:00 p.m. Eastern time.

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