Romney Assails Obama on Handling of Chen Case PORTSMOUTH, Va. - Mitt Romney criticized the Obama administration on Thursday for its handling of the case of Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese dissident lawyer, calling reports coming out of China "a dark day for freedom." Referring to news accounts that have been trickling out about Mr. Chen, who fled to the American Embassy in Beijing but then left amid delicate negotiations between China and the United States, Mr. Romney accused the Obama administration of rushing to complete a deal before Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner arrived for the high-level meetings with Chinese leaders. "We've heard some disturbing things from across the world that suggest that, potentially, if the reports are true, some very troubling developments there," Mr. Romney said. If these reports are true, this is a dark day for freedom and it's a day of shame for the Obama administration. The reports suggest that "our administration willingly or unwittingly communicated to Chen an implicit threat to his family, and also probably sped up, or may have sped up, the process of his decision to leave the embassy because they wanted to move on to a series of discussions that Mr. Geithner and our secretary of state are planning on having with China," he continued. It's also apparent, according to these reports, if they're accurate, that our embassy failed to put in place the kind of verifiable measures that would assure the safety of Mr. Chen and his family. Mr. Romney also portrayed Mr. Chen, who arrived at the embassy after his escape from a strict house arrest in eastern China, as a man who "sought freedom in a bastion of freedom, an embassy of the United States of America." Aren't we proud of the fact that people seeking freedom come to our embassy to find it? Mr. Romney said. A senior Obama administration official acknowledged Thursday that the United States recognized that Mr. Chen wanted to leave China, an apparent reversal of his earlier stance. Mr. Chen's change of heart and his six-day stay at the embassy left the administration struggling to come up with a new solution that would satisfy Mr. Chen and be amenable to the Chinese government.