Romney's tenure at Bain called into question
Getty Images/Win McNamee
Updated 2:25 p.m. ET
(CBS News) Adding yet another layer of fog to Mitt Romney's financial history, the Boston Globe on Thursday reported on new evidence that allegedly shows the presumptive GOP presidential nominee remained in control of the private equity firm Bain Capital three years longer than he's claimed. If correct, the findings would complicate Romney's line of defense that he was gone before many of the firm's companies went bankrupt or laid off workers.
Securities and Exchange Commission documents filed by Bain after 1999 - when Romney has said he left the company to lead the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics - state the former Massachusetts governor as the firm's "sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president," according to the Globe. And Romney's financial disclosure forms in Massachusetts say he earned $100,000 as a Bain "executive" in 2001 and 2002.
Bain issued a statement Thursday assuring that Romney "left Bain Capital in February 1999 to run the Olympics and has had absolutely no involvement with the management or investment activities of the firm or with any of its portfolio companies since the day of his departure. Due to the sudden nature of Mr. Romney's departure, he remained the sole stockholder for a time while formal ownership was being documented and transferred to the group of partners who took over management of the firm in 1999. Accordingly, Mr. Romney was reported in various capacities on SEC filings during this period."
Mr. Obama's deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter sees it differently and is suggesting that if this revelation turns out to be legit, Romney could be in a heap of criminal trouble.
"Either Mitt Romney, through his own words and his own signature was misrepresenting his position at Bain to the SEC, which is a felony. Or, he was misrepresenting his position at Bain to the American people to avoid responsibility for some of the consequences of his investments," Cutter said on a conference call with reporters Thursday. "And if that's the case, if he was lying to the American people, then that's a real character and trust issue that the American people need to take very seriously."
Though Romney's campaign told the Globe that the disclosures reveal merely a legal technicality and "do not square with common sense," Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul on Thursday slammed the article as "inaccurate" and "hinging" on testimony from former SEC commissioner Roberta S. Karmel, a "Carter-appointed lifelong Democrat."
"The article is not accurate," Saul said in a statement. "As Bain Capital has said, as Governor Romney has said, and as has been confirmed by independent fact checkers multiple times, Governor Romney left Bain Capital in February of 1999 to run the Olympics and had no input on investments or management of companies after that point."
Accurate or not, any new questions relating to Romney's business past and finances do not bode well for the candidate, who's made headlines recently for unreported offshore assets and Bain's history with shipping jobs overseas. But the campaign on Thursday released an ad suggesting many of these controversies have surfaced as a result of President Obama's "dishonest campaign."
View the ad:
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"its all distraction politics because the President has been"
LOL! The real "distraction politics" comes from you right-wingers, that can only post attacks on President Obama, ON EVERY THREAD, completely against the rules with OFF-TOPIC ranting and raving!
This thread is clearly about questioning romney's tenure at bain!
Stick with the TOPIC, or we know how desperate you righties are!
"It's been apparent to anybody paying attention that Romney is a phony and a liar. He's been that way for years. Nothing new here".
Nope....nothing new here....move along, since we already know how phony and mendacious mitt romney is, and has been for a long time!
Read the Fax Romney Sent to a Laid-Off Worker
Bloomberg Businessweek's Paul Barrett wrote the definitive story on Romney, Ampad, and Johnson, which you can read here. Among the documents Barrett turned up is this fascinating fax that Romney sent to Johnson, quasi-apologizing -- though still denying culpability -- for the Ampad bankruptcy and his lost job:
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-05-21/read-the-fax-romney-sent-to-a-laid-off-worker
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Nice job mr. romney, laying off another middle class worker when you sent the jobs overseas, and then had the gall to send him a fax!
You are truly an enemy to the middle class Americans, mitt romney!
More pivoting and misdirection by the Smokster.
There is now proof on record that Romney lied about his Bain involvement, and lied about his involvement with outsourcing.
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Smokey_75 July 13, 2012 9:27 AM EDT
"What Proof?..The same proof that Obama is not a US citizen?"
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Yes ben, all that the right-wingers like smokey have these days is the need to disrupt and try to divert every thread here at CBS in order to post off-topic attacks and now even reverting to "birtherism" -- long ago debunked for the average American!
They are getting more desperate, and the longer that mitt romney refuses to reveal his tax returns, the more the offshoring of middle class jobs by romney and bain capital sticks to him like glue!
"It is almost amusing how desperate the left is they are grasping atany straw to try and have anything that will save Obama".
Hey smokey -- talk about a desperate right-wing cacophony that only has a need to disrupt and divert every thread with anti-Obama rants, this thread is questioning "romney's tenure at bain".
It has nothing to do about President Obama that you are obsessed with, but somehow you break the rules here at CBS regularly, and keep posting your endless attacks and off-topic political rhetoric.
Stick with the topic for once!
If he has noting to hide, he has nothing to worry about.
Of course not, as an investment banker preying on weak companies ripe for a takeover, in order to use over-leveraged buyouts to steal their assets and put the taxpayers on the line for pensions, willard romney is not what America needs!
His time at bain capital, which is now highly suspect due to his hiding tax returns from the public, was all about maximizing profits for a few, while "firing middle class workers" and shipping jobs to China and India for higher profits!
See, Mitt, the vast majority of American voters have NEVER received $100,000 in salary for a single year of work. So we'd really like to know how YOU managed to earn $100,000 in salary for two years when you say you performed no work whatsoever for Bain Capital. And is there some way WE can get a gig like that?