Mitt Romney’s former company Bain Capital has a spotted history of investing in companies that offshored jobs overseas to countries like China. At the same time Romney blasts outsourcing on the campaign trail, calling President Obama “outsourcer-in-chief,” his former partners at Bain have defended the practice.

Appearing on MSNBC’s “Up With Chris Hayes,” Romney’s former partner at Bain Capital Edward Conard made the case for outsourcing jobs, which he argues in his book, “Unintended Consequence”:

CONARD: I think the problem with defending it, for Mitt, I’m not speaking for Mitt [...] people look very close at the micro, get their nose close to the paper and say, ah-ha there is a job that was lost and went overseas, and we can speak about Bain. On a macro level we can see 20 million immigrants came into our country, there’s net insourcing, not net outsourcing. We were growing the economy fast enough that we were pulling the employees into the country, more than sending out of the country. Of the 40 million jobs created, 50 percent were created at the highest end of the wage scale, 40 percent of the jobs in the 1980s were at the highest end of the wage scale, so, there was a disproportionate increase at the high end of the wage scale over that, over that period.

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Meanwhile, Romney’s top economic adviser Greg Mankiw has also argued for outsourcing jobs, calling it “a good thing.” As another Bain manager explained, “I never thought of what I do for a living as job creation.” Romney’s role at Bain was to create wealth for his firm, not jobs.

Ed Gillespie, a senior campaign advisor for Mitt Romney, appeared on Meet the Press this morning to answer questions about Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital, and unveiled a new excuse for why Romney should not be held responsible for the company’s actions during a time in which he remained CEO and president:

GREGORY: He was still financially linked to Bain. And of course, a lot his fortune is due to his time with Bain. Even when he was on leave, does he stand by the business decisions that were made by the firm he created?

GILLESPIE: He actually retired retroactively at that point. He ended up not going back to the firm after his time in Salt Lake City. So he was actually retired from Bain.

Throughout the primary season until just last week, the Romney campaign stood forcefully by their assertion that Romney “retired” from Bain Capital in February of 1999. But with the release of previously unreported SEC documents last week which suggest that Romney in fact retained the titles of CEO and chairman well into the new century, the Romney campaign has struggled to adequately answer voters’ questions.

Gillespie was also questioned about whether Romney supports the business practice of outsourcing jobs overseas, a favorite tactic of Bain Capital. Gillespie was noncommittal, instead stating that Romney believes businesses should be free to do as they see fit.

Gillespie also tried to paint Romney’s decision to release just two years of tax returns as transparent. “The fact is, Governor Romney has put out already 2010, and will put out 2011 before this election. So, very transparent,” he told Gregory.

Influential conservative commentator Bill Kristol added his name to the growing list of Republicans calling on Mitt Romney to release his tax returns. Kristol said that Romney should release additional returns “tommorrow” and recommended releasing 6 to 10 additional years:

Here’s what he should do. He should release the tax returns tomorrow. This is crazy… you’ve got to release 6, 8, 10 years of back tax returns. Take the hit for a day or two. Then give a serious speech on Thursday…

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Kristol joins Alabama Governor Robert Bentley, former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour and strategist Ana Navarro as prominent Republicans calling on Romney to release his tax returns.