Photo credit: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Newscom

Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid defended the unsubstantiated charges he made about Mitt Romney’s tax liability as “necessary” during an interview on Nevada public radio Wednesday. Asked by a caller about the “brazen lie” of claiming the former Republican nominee for president hadn’t paid taxes for a decade, Reid took issue with the characterization and said he spoke the “truth”-though he referenced a separate criticism of Romney, that he didn’t release several years of tax returns, as proof.