BOSTON – As the controversy over Elizabeth Warren’s false minority status rages into Day 20, Jim Barnett, campaign manager for Scott Brown, appeared on WRKO’s Tom & Todd this morning and once again called on the Harvard Professor to authorize the release of her academic records.

To date, Warren, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania have refused all requests to make public the information that could provide needed answers to the outstanding questions still lingering.

Click HERE for audio, and see transcript below.

JIM BARNETT: “Well look, honesty and forthrightness in a candidate for United States Senate is important. Frankly, all of this debate has nothing to do with Elizabeth Warren’s credentials to be a Harvard Professor. It’s about whether or not she has the credentials to be a United States Senator. And that starts with being forthright and honest with the people that you’re seeking to represent, and right now you have to forgive the voters if they think she’s not telling them the truth, right to their face. So, I think it is an issue that needs to be resolved, Elizabeth Warren needs to authorize the release of the personnel files that will presumably show how she listed herself at these schools. She started out saying she had no idea how Harvard got this idea, then the University of Pennsylvania comes out also saying that she is a minority. I don’t think that these two institutions came to that conclusion independently of each other, without her being the source of it.” (WRKO’s “Tom & Todd,” 5/16/12)

“This new revelation that Harvard characterized Elizabeth Warren as a ‘woman of color’ in the context of affirmative action is a clear indication that something is deeply wrong. As we all now know, Professor Warren is not a minority, her ridiculous claims notwithstanding. She is certainly not a ‘woman of color.’ This disturbing development illustrates why it is critically important that Warren, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania stop stonewalling, release her personnel records and come clean about why Warren is continuously represented as a minority hire at these schools.”

Brown said his bill would raise the $6 billion needed to avoid a doubling of interest rates on student loans to 6.8 percent on July 1 by cutting wasteful spending.

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This story first ran in the AP on May 11, 2012.

In the ad, Brown promotes legislation he introduced to keep student loan interest rates low without raising taxes. But Brown said a subsidized loan rate is only part of the solution to helping students pay for the expense of college. He said colleges need to do a better job of keeping costs down, and that the best graduation gift we can give young people is a strong economy with career opportunities.

This 60-second advertisement is part of a series of “Radio Reports” to be released by Brown during the course of the campaign. A transcript of the ad appears below.

To Listen To “Education,” Please See: http://youtu.be/d3_b475c-Nc

Script for Scott Brown Radio Report: Education

ANNOUNCER: “Here’s Scott Brown with a Scott Brown Radio Report.”

U.S. SENATOR SCOTT BROWN: “Hello, this is Scott Brown.

“When I went to school, four years of private tuition, room and board, cost about $25,000. Today, that same education is around $200,000.

“To pay for it all, kids and their parents are going deeper into debt. Recently, I filed legislation to extend the low interest rate on government guaranteed student loans without raising taxes.

“But that alone won’t help our students deal with the challenges of paying for their education.

“Colleges also need to do a better job at holding down costs.

“And young people need to know that when they leave school there will be a good job waiting for them. Today, one out of two college graduates are either unemployed or working beneath their skill level.

“The best graduation gift we can give them is a strong economy that provides the same opportunities we had starting out.”

ANNOUNCER: “That was Scott Brown with a Scott Brown radio report.”

BROWN: “I’m Scott Brown. I approve this message. Go to ScottBrown.com to learn more.”

In a letter to Commerce Secretary John Bryson, Brown asked the Commerce chief to review and report on two new instances of unexplained actions — the brief solicitation for a “magician” to preside at a leadership conference, and a mass meeting of agency lawyers at a hotel in Philadelphia, a two hour ride from NOAA’s Silver Spring, Md., headquarters.

“NOAA’s continued disregard for being efficient and effective stewards of taxpayer dollars illustrates the rampant culture of waste at this agency, which has been fostered by Administrator Lubchenco’s failure to punish obvious misconduct,” Brown wrote. “NOAA’s decision to seek an outside magician is just another troubling example.

“It has already been documented that Administrator Lubchenco previously retained an employee who made 80 percent of the agency’s law enforcement files disappear in a ‘shredding party’ during an Inspector General investigation. This is the same well-paid NOAA employee who supported the purchase of a $300,000 luxury fishing boat, despite warnings from a NOAA procurement lawyer.”

Brown was referring to a published solicitation for a speaker for a day at a leadership conference scheduled for June. The specifications for the speaker included mastery of magic as applied to inspire. The request for applications for the assignment was taken down after press inquiries.

The “shredding party” refers to actions authorized by the then director of law enforcement, Dale Jones, in November 2010, while the Commerce Department inspector general’s teams were gathering evidence of abuse of the Asset Forfeiture Fund and making targets of fishing industry representatives. IG Todd Zinser reported the shredding event during sworn testimony Congress in March 2010.

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This story first ran in the Gloucester Times on May 10, 2012.

Since being elected to the Senate in January 2010, the Republican has been a critic of the the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s “unfair” fishing regulations and has called for the firing of Administrator Jane Lubchenco.

“Our fishing industry is dying, and Washington is to blame,” Brown says in the 60-second ad. “Fishermen have been hit with crushing fines, unrealistic catch limits, and arbitrary enforcement. As a result, people have lost their jobs, their homes, and their way of life. The agency responsible for this crisis is completely out of touch and unresponsive.

“What does it take to get fired in Washington?” he continues.

“Our fishermen and their families deserve better from their government, and I’m going to fight to protect them.”

Folks along the New Bedford waterfront said he’s done just that.

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This story first ran in the New Bedford Standard Times on May 9, 2012.

The Brown campaign and the Republican Party have sought to keep such questions circulating since The Boston Herald reported late last month that Harvard Law School, where Ms. Warren currently teaches, once cited her as American Indian in the 1990s, when it was under attack for not having a diverse faculty.

Although his aides have hammered Ms. Warren over the issue, Mr. Brown himself has kept quiet about it until now, only urging reporters to keep looking into it. But on Tuesday he offered his own harsh rebuke, saying in a statement that Ms. Warren’s “changing stories, contradictions and refusal to answer legitimate questions have cast doubt on her credibility and called into question the diversity practices at Harvard.”

He added, “The best way to satisfy these questions is for Elizabeth Warren to authorize the release of her law school applications and all personnel files from the various universities where she has taught.”

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This story first ran in the New York Times on May 9, 2012.

The 30-second ad will begin airing statewide today in the Boston, Springfield, Providence and Albany markets, as well as on statewide cable.

The ad features Brown talking about how he delivered on his promise to be an independent voter and thinker, and on the importance of working together to get the economy moving and “restore the American Dream for all of us.”

A recent analysis from Congressional Quarterly found that Brown is the second-most bipartisan Senator, voting with his party 54 percent of the time.

To view “Independent,” please click: http://youtu.be/euix3FKxGNc

TEXT: “Independent” (TV:30)

U.S. SENATOR SCOTT BROWN: ”Tonight, the independent majority has delivered a great victory.”

VIDEO TEXT: Election Night 2010

BROWN: ”My whole life has been about beating the odds.”

BROWN TO YOUNG PEOPLE: ”There’s absolutely nothing in this world that you can’t get if you work hard at it.”

BROWN: ”I’ve done what I said I was going to do.”

60 MINUTE NEWS CLIP OF CBS REPORTER LESLIE STAHL: ”He’s turned out to be unpredictably independent, and beholden to no one.”

BROWN: ”We have more work to do on getting this economy moving again. Working together, we can restore the American Dream for all of us.”

BROWN: ”I’m Scott Brown, and I approve this message.”

DISCLAIMER: Paid for by Scott Brown for U.S. Senate

Since January, as part of the Republican’s effort to win a full six-year term for the seat he took in a special election in 2010 after the death of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Brown’s campaign has been running weekly radio spots on topics as varied as “Americans First,” “military jobs,” “tax,” “jobs” and “the Red Sox.”

Brown and the presumed Democratic nominee, Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren, have been locked in a tight and high visibility race since the start of the year, when Warren became a national favorite of party activists and donors.

The gist of the Brown ad that began running today implicitly flails the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, reprising and broadening a kicker Brown first enunciated last June 20 during a field hearing he organized in Faneuil Hall of a Senate Homeland Security subcommittee.

To read the rest of the story click here.

This story first ran in the Gloucester Times on May 8, 2012.