Breaking: Romney was flown in for board meetings for Bain Capital in 2002. On MSNBC. Ben LaBolt .
Will add to it.
Busted.
The Obama campaign says Romney may have committed a felony by filing false statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Ben LaBolt, Obama Re-election campaign National Press Secretary, will talk about that.
Jennifer Granholm, former MI governor, and host of The War Room, found that Romney was more heavily involved in 11 Bain Companies past 2002. Link below - worth watching ! It is a little bit below their title story from think progress :
http://thinkprogress.org/...
Here is the problem: Willard cannot run on his record at Massachusetts for several reasons: Mass was 47th in job growth under his tenure and Romneycare undermines his attack on the Affordable Care Act. This is similar to what Tim Russert did to David Duke in a way. The real rationale of Rmoney's campaign is to help the 1 percent. But his stated rationale is to "improve the economy" (really for the 1 percent). In any event, since Rmoney can't run on his record as governor, that leaves his experience as a vulture capitalist. This is supposed to show us that he knows how to create jobs. However, the real record shows us that he bought companies, fired the workers, and looted them of their pensions. To avoid responsibility for that, Rmoney has denied that he was responsible for Bain's activities after 1999. There are several problems with that. First, he takes credit for jobs created by Staples well after 1999. Second, he created five partnerships himself with Bain and other companies in 2002. The SEC filings show that he was CEO, sole shareholder, and President of the company through 2002.
Now, we know that he also regularly attended board meetings of Bain.
He can't tell the SEC that he is responsible for everything the company does as CEO, sole shareholder, ... claim credit for the Staples jobs and then tell the American public now that he was not responsible for anything the company did. It does not work that way. It is one or the other.
He was lying then or he is lying now. One is a felony. The other violates the public trust.
In either case, he has made clear that he cannot be trusted with the Presidency.
He has exactly one core belief: that he should be elected (in this case President of the United States) and make lots of money.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Washington Post quoting Bob Bauer
5:15 PM PT: sourcing for other sources. Just watched Ben LaBolt announce this on the Ed show seconds ago. Explosive.
On a conference call with reporters just now, however, Obama campaign counsel Bob Bauer strongly hinted that evidence of more direct involvement would soon emerge. “I would stay very much tuned on that,” he said
Ed Show lists this
The Obama campaign says Romney may have committed a felony by filing false statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Ben LaBolt, Obama Re-election campaign National Press Secretary, will talk about that.
5:26 PM PT: As soon as video is up, Huff Post Hat tip Last Year's ManI will embed it here. Meantime, I continue to try to source this in other ways.
Thanks for your patience. I am furiously at work on this --
Mitt Romney's repeated claim that he played no part in executive decision-making related to Bain after 1999 is false, according to Romney's own testimony in June 2002, in which he admitted to sitting on the board of the Lifelike Co., a doll maker that was a Bain investment during the period.
Romney has consistently insisted that he was too busy organizing the 2002 Winter Olympics to take part in Bain business between 1999 and that event. But in the testimony, which was provided to The Huffington Post, Romney noted that he regularly traveled back to Massachusetts. "[T]here were a number of social trips and business trips that brought me back to Massachusetts, board meetings, Thanksgiving and so forth," he said.
Romney's sworn testimony was given as part of a hearing to determine whether he had sufficient residency status in Massachusetts to run for governor
.
5:32 PM PT: Again, Hat tip to Last Years Man and Addikell
This is a flat contradiction (and may I use "end of quote" incorrectly also ?)
Bain, a private equity firm, held a stake in the Lifelike Co. until the end of 2001, including during the period in which Romney claimed to have no business involvement with Bain entities.
snip
His activities during that period also included Staples board meetings: "I returned for most of those meetings. Others I attended by telephone if I could not return
Hound Dog makes this great pointBut, this HuffingtonPost article reports Romney's sworn testimony on June 2, 2003 that he was involved in at least three of the Bain client companies, during that period.
Today Romney's campaign issued a statement that Romney had no dealing with either Bain, or any of its portfolio companies, but this Romney's own sworn testimony contradicts this. (see article.)
CNN needs to correct its reporting. This is not a "he said - she said" conflict between the Romney and Obama campaigns as CNN seems to want to define it, but factual conflicts in Romney's statements.
This article also notes Romney reported in this June 2002 hearing to establish his MA residency so he could run for governor, that he was the "sole owner, CEO, president, and chairman of the board," of the Bain company and earned $100,000 salary in executive compensation, (not just dividends.
CNN appears to be mis-reporting the nature of the issue. Whether or not Romney actually did anything in the actual day to day management, as the partners now claim, does not prove Romney's point, but rather more deeply conflicts with his sworn testimony to the Mass election commission on June of 2002.
6:04 PM PT: still waiting at least for the video to embed. When it is up, I will embed it. Thanks for all of the help ! Definitely a Team Effort !
6:09 PM PT: Rachel with the video from his 2002 Governor's debate video wherein Rmoney claimed to be absolved of any responsibility for all of the vampire / vulture activities of Bain Capital because he was no longer doing any work for Bain.
6:15 PM PT: Certainly the 5 investment partnerships created by Mitt Romney in 2002 invalidates his claim as well.
TPM's Brian Beutler points out
The reason this issue is in dispute at all is because Mitt Romney wants full political inoculation from anything Bain did between early 1999 and 2002, when he definitely truly left the company. He wasn’t in charge, except in a narrow, technical sense; he’d delegated his duties; Bain’s business practices from that period can’t be hung around his neck.
If you’re not already belly-laughing think about it this way.
For Romney to be truly off the hook politically for the stuff Bain was doing, he’d have to claim not lack of control, but lack of knowledge. And that’s just not going to wash with anyone. He could try going the “I didn’t have even the slightest idea what the company I technically still owned was doing” route, but he’d be marking himself as either dishonest or incompetent.
As Ed pointed out, he would be legally responsible for the company's actions due to his position as CEO, sole shareholder, and President of the company .