Why is Romney lying about when he left Bain Capital?

[AquaMan]

Michael, those posts are simply drawing away from an indefensible position and diverting to a personal attack. His forte. The subject is Romney and Bain. Apparently "he who must not be mentioned" believes that Romney is lying about his tenure at Bain and therefore this is only another attempt by you to address the subject of lying, this time by a Republican. But its not about you, Obama's college days, birth certificates or police uniforms. Its Romney and his Bain years. Why doesn't he admit that as President, CEO and Chairman of the board that it seems unlikely that he was not making decisions at Bain in 2002? Its a relevant question that relates to his personality and piques interest into why he would hold tight to such an unsubstantiated remark. I'm not ready to call him a liar but I think its important to note that wealthy operators like him perceive truth in a different manner than the rest of us. They conflate truth with purpose. He was operating Bain but not as actively as before so in his mind he was out of leadership even though technically, and by SEC standards, he was "the guy".

There is something about this candidate that indicates wavering integrity at many levels and a propensity to think he is somehow deserving and should be immune from criticism of his past. If we can't analyze, question, praise and criticize what do we have? His looks? Ok, he is clean and has a fine looking wife.

Well, we got that already.

[Red Arrow]

You must have me confused with another poster. I have no title in the democratic party.

In that case I apologize.

[Red Arrow]

Actually. It makes it not relevant. To me the voter. Others may make it so.

My dictionary says irrelevant = not relevant.  What is your point or typo?

[Red Arrow]

It seems like every politician person has something about their youth that they want to hide.

Except me, of course.   

[AquaMan]

Except me, of course.   

Me either. Squandered my youth, I did.

[Teatownclown]

12 years in tax returns is what we need to see.

Is he hiding his entire economic past in those documents?

Remember, It's Mittens to the rescue of the Obama Economy.

He must have some real Morons telling him what to do.

They could be telling you what you will do if you don't watch out.

[Red Arrow]

I'm not ready to call him a liar but I think its important to note that wealthy operators like him perceive truth in a different manner than the rest of us.

Guys at the top don't always sign every document.  It's possible that by delegating everything to subordinates that he believed he was no longer in charge.  Kind of like the Fast & Furious deal.

[Teatownclown]

Guys at the top don't always sign every document.  It's possible that by delegating everything to subordinates that he believed he was no longer in charge.  Kind of like the Fast & Furious deal.

Wrong. That would be more like Bernard Madoff running Bain and Mittens coming in to take over...

[Teatownclown]

Holy smokies...Forbes doesn't like RMoney. They are leading the media charge along with the Post and the Globe. But this one's really well thought out. http://www.forbes.com/sites/tjwalker/2012/07/14/35-questions-mitt-romney-must-answer-about-bain-capital-before-the-issue-can-go-away/

INVESTING | 7/14/2012 @ 12:25PM |75,691 views
35 Questions Mitt Romney Must Answer About Bain Capital Before The Issue Can Go Away

Mitt Romney conducted numerous TV and other media interviews yesterday in order to minimize the damage his campaign has received regarding discrepancies surrounding his tenure at Bain.

During times of crisis it is often a smart strategy to give virtually unlimited access to the media in order to push out your message aggressively and satisfy reporter curiosity so that the issue can be pushed of the front burner. John McCain famously did this well earlier in his career when dealing with his own Keating five controversies.

Unfortunately for the Romney Campaign, The slew of TV interviews did little to satisfy the media. In times of crisis, a strong candidate will come up with answers that satisfy the basic questions surround the controversy and will make people want to move on to another subject. Romney, however, could not seem to come up with basic messages that resolved the controversies. Many of his answers seemed evasive or overly legalistic. The biggest problem for Romney is that all of his interviews have only increased the questions that political observers, voters and the media have regarding he subject of Bain Capital.

Specifically, Romney is going to have to answer the following 35 questions before this issue subsides:

1. Are you contending that an individual can simultaneously be the CEO, president, managing director of a company, and its sole stockholder and somehow be "disassociated" from the company or accurately classified as someone not having "any" formal involvement with a company?

2. You have stated that in "Feb. 1999 I left Bain capital and all management responsibility" and "I had no ongoing activity or involvement." It depends on what the definition of "involvement" is, doesn't it? Clearly you were involved with Bain to the extent that you owned it. Are you defining "involvement" in a uniquely specific way that only means "full-time, active, 60-hours-a-week, hands-on manager?"

3. How exactly are you defining "involvement?"

4. Surely someone from Bain occasionally called you up and asked your opinion about something work related from 1999 to 2002. Wouldn't that qualify as "involvement," if only on a minor level?

5. You earned at least $100,000 as an executive from Bain in 2001 and 2002, separate from investment earnings according to filings with State of Massachusetts. Can you give an example of anyone else you personally know getting a six figure income, not dividend or investment return, but actual income, from a company they had nothing to do with?

6. What did you do for this $100,000 salary you earned from Bain in both 2000 and 2001?

7. If you did nothing to earn this salary, did the Bain managers violate their fiduciary duty by paying you a salary for no discernible reason?

8. Are there other companies that pay you six figures a year as earned income, not investment income, for which you have no involvement?

9. In 2002, you are listed as one of two managing members of Bain Capital Investors LLC in its annual report. What does this mean?

10. On the very day after you took over the Winter Olympics, the Boston Herald reported that "Romney said he will stay on as a part-timer with Bain, providing input on investment and key personnel decisions." Do you now contend this was factually inaccurate?

11. Do you have records of having written to the Boston Herald asking them to make a correction on this story?

12. On July 19, 1999, a news release about the resignation of two Bain Capital managing directors describes you as CEO and "currently on a part-time leave of absence to head the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee." Was this wrong?

13. Did you ask for a retraction?

14. Why would Bain say this if you had severed all ties in Feb 1999?

15. Isn't it possible that if Bain had made an investment during 1999 to 2002 that you felt was truly odious, for example ownership of a legal Nevada brothel, that you could have and would have used your authority to veto such a decision?

16. If, in fact, you did not veto any major investment decision during your 1999 though 2002 ownership, doesn't that imply your broad consent of management's decisions?

17. According to the Boston Globe, "In a November 2000 interview with the Globe, Romney's wife, Ann, said he had been forced to lessen, but not end entirely, his involvement with Bain Capital." Did your wife misspeak?

18. Did you correct her?

19. According to the Boston Globe, "Romney also testified that 'there were a number of social trips and business trips that brought [him] back to Massachusetts, board meetings' while he was running the Olympics. He added that he remained on the boards of several companies, including the Lifelike Co., in which Bain Capital held a stake until 2001." You testified that while running the Olympics you took a number of business trips to Massachusetts and for board meetings for companies including Lifelike Co. Bain had a stake in this company until 2001. Are you contending that you could attend board meetings for Lifelike Co at the same time Bain Capital had a stake in Lifelike Co and at the same time you owned the stock of Bain Capital, but that somehow your attending a board meeting for a company partially owned by Bain had nothing to do with Bain because you were on the board as Mitt Romney the individual, not as the representative of Bain?

20. If yes to the previous question, do you understand that anyone who did not graduate in the top 5% of his class from Harvard Law School, as you did, may have a hard time understanding this?

21. You seem to be suggesting that once you stepped down from full-time, 7 day a week, 18 hour a day management, that you were no longer "involved." You claim you had "no role whatsoever in the management." Assume for the moment that everyone, even in the Obama campaign concedes that after Feb 1999 you were no longer the 100% full-time, hands-on manager of Bain. Isn't it fair to suggest that an individual could still have a role in managing a company through the occasional phone call, meeting and email, even if they didn't involve monumental decisions, such as hiring and firing?

22. When you demanded an apology from the Obama Campaign you seem to suggest that they have stated that you deserve blame for outsourcing done at Bain from 1999 to 2001 because they stated that you were the full-time active manger of Bain during that time. Can you cite a single ad, press release or statement from the Obama Campaign where they specify that you were the full-time manager of Bain from 1999 to 2001?

23. Every time a reporter asks you "why were you listed by Bain in sec documents as the CEO in 2000-2002″ You respond that everyone knows you were no longer the active manger after Feb. 1999 and that you owned stock in Bain but did not manage anything. That may well be, but that doesn't answer the question as to why Bain listed you as ceo, president and managing director. Why won't you answer a simple question that involves basic facts that are undisputed?

24. Why do SEC documents claim you were Chief Executive Officer, President, and Managing Director of Bain Capital 2000 and 2001 if you were merely the sole owner?

25. Did you sign this SEC document?

26. Is this accurate or not?

27. If you didn't sign it, is someone guilty of lying to the SEC?

28. True or false, it is a felony to lie on SEC filings?

29. When asked "did you attend board meetings for Bain after 1999″ you responded by saying "I did not manage Bain after 1999," or that you didn't attend any meetings involving things like firing people. This seems to suggest the possibility that you did attend Bain meetings in 2000 and 2001 that did not involve hiring or firing people or where you made the final decisions on investments. Is that possible?

30. If not, why not just give a blanket statement that you never attended a single board meeting for Bain after Feb. 1999?

31. If Obama owned slum apartments in Chicago that horribly mistreated poor people and didn't provide them heat or running water, but Obama hired a real estate management firm to manage the building and collect rent, do you think it would be fair to criticize him for being a hypocritical slum lord who showed no compassion for poor people?

32. You seem to stress the word "management" a great deal. You had no role in active "management" of Bain after Feb 1999. You then seem to suggest that the only other role for a person to be involved with a company is as an investor. Isn't there a third role?

33. Couldn't you have been an active adviser or consultant, the way many chairmen of the board are?

34. You are obviously bright, hard working and energetic. Isn't is possible that you put in 60 hours a week on the Olympics but still put in 5 hours a week as an active consultant or adviser by phone, email and the occasional meeting with the full time managers of Bain?

35. In general, don't full-time hired managers often seek the "advice" of absentee owners and then do everything they can to implement that "advice?"

[nathanm]

Guys at the top don't always sign every document.

So his signing hand, it signs SEC filings without his brain's input? Good to know. I've always wanted a President that doesn't even look at the stuff he signs.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Guys at the top don't always sign every document.  It's possible that by delegating everything to subordinates that he believed he was no longer in charge.  Kind of like the Fast & Furious deal.

That kind of thing is exactly what the guy at the top must sign.  You have to know this - are you just being obtuse or just trying a diversion?

[Red Arrow]

I've always wanted a President that doesn't even look at the stuff he signs.

Nothing new.  You have to pass it to know what's in it.

[RecycleMichael]

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2012/07/14/evidence_mounts_of_mitt_romneys_continuing_ties_to_bain_after_1999/?page=1

Account of Romney's Bain departure has evolved
Conflicting evidence on his role after 1999

Globe Correspondent And Globe Staff / July 14, 2012

Only a week before the election for Massachusetts governor in 2002, Democratic candidate Shannon O'Brien launched a television ad in which a laid-off steelworker accused Mitt Romney, O'Brien's Republican opponent, of firing laborers at a Kansas City steel mill, leaving them without health insurance and destroying their families. Eight years earlier, Senator Edward M. Kennedy deployed a similar attack — with devastating effectiveness — in a campaign against Romney, the wealthy founder of private equity firm Bain Capital.

But this time, Romney had a strong rebuttal, one that would become a bedrock of his political career for the next decade: He said he was not responsible for the struggles of the worker and his colleagues because he had left Bain Capital in February 1999, two years before the Bain-owned steel mill went bankrupt. It was a response echoed again and again in televised interviews Friday, as Romney did not budge from his position. "I had no role whatsoever in the management of Bain Capital after February of 1999,'' he told CBS.

The 2002 gubernatorial campaign, which Romney won, marked a major pivot in the narrative about his tenure at Bain Capital. From that time on, Romney, now the presumptive GOP nominee for president, began to describe Feb. 11, 1999 — the day he was named chief executive of the Salt Lake City Olympics organizing committee — as the date on which he abdicated all control over Bain Capital and its business operations.

But until his run for governor — and even before that campaign was underway in earnest, when he needed to prove sustained connections to Massachusetts in order to ward off a ballot challenge — Romney had characterized his departure from Bain Capital more as a "leave of absence" in which he would be a "part-timer," and not as an absolute separation from the thriving business he built and solely owned.

It was not until 2002 that Romney finalized a severance agreement with Bain, a 10-year deal with undisclosed terms that was retroactive to 1999. Romney's own words, along with other documentary evidence, appear to challenge his campaign's assertion in a recent financial disclosure that Romney had "retired" from Bain in 1999 and "since February 11, 1999, Mr. Romney has not had any active role with any Bain Capital entity and has not been involved in the operations of any Bain Capital entity in any way."

Financial disclosure forms Romney filed in Massachusetts indicate he earned at least $100,000 as a Bain "executive" in 2001 and 2002, separate from investment earnings. In addition, Bloomberg news service reported Friday, Romney is named as one of two managing members of Bain Capital Investors LLC in annual reports filed in Massachusetts as late as 2002, "adding a new corporate entity to a growing number of Bain-related investments and funds that list the Republican presidential candidate as controlling the company three years after he said he left it."

On the day after Romney took over the Winter Olympics, the Boston Herald reported that "Romney said he will stay on as a part-timer with Bain, providing input on investment and key personnel decisions."

On July 19, 1999, a news release about the resignation of two Bain Capital managing directors describes Romney as CEO and "currently on a part-time leave of absence to head the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee." omney is quoted in the release from Regan Communications of Boston as saying, "While we will miss them, we wish them well and look forward to working with them as they build their firm," language that suggests he was still involved in Bain personnel matters.

A Harvard Business School bulletin from October 1999 reported that "Romney is currently on leave as CEO of Bain Capital" and not that he had "retired" from Bain. In a November 2000 interview with the Globe, Romney's wife, Ann, said he had been forced to lessen, but not end entirely, his involvement with Bain Capital. t was not until August 2001 that Romney announced he would not return to full-time management of Bain Capital at the conclusion of the Olympics.

Until then, Romney planned to pick up where he left off, just as he had after two previous leaves of absence — one from 1991 to 1992 to save Bain and Company from near-bankruptcy and another from late 1993 to 1994 to run for US Senate. "When I left my employer in Massachusetts in February of 1999 to accept the Olympic assignment," Romney testified before the state Ballot Law Commission on June 17, 2002, "I left on the basis of a leave of absence indicating that I, by virtue of that title, would return at the end of the Olympics to my employment at Bain Capital, but subsequently decided not to do so and entered into a departure agreement with my former partners."

Romney also testified that "there were a number of social trips and business trips that brought [him] back to Massachusetts, board meetings" while he was running the Olympics. He added that he remained on the boards of several companies, including the Lifelike Co., in which Bain Capital held a stake until 2001. Romney's lawyer at the hearing said that Romney's work in the private sector continued unbroken while he ran the Olympics. "He succeeded in that three-year period in restoring confidence in the Olympic Games, closing that disastrous deficit and staging one of the most successful Olympic Games ever to occur on US soil," said Peter L. Ebb from Ropes & Gray.

"Now while all that was going on, very much in the public eye, what happened to his private and public ties to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts? And the answer is they continued unabated just as they had." The Romney campaign declined to comment on the record about whether the business trips and board meetings were related to Bain Capital obligations.

During this campaign, Romney's team has not wavered from its position that he had no involvement with Bain Capital after Feb. 11, 1999. The firm has backed him, despite submitting Securities and Exchange Commission filings that name Romney as "sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president" long after that date. "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," Bain Capital said in a statement Thursday. "Accordingly, Mr. Romney was reported in various capacities on SEC filings during this period." Other news outlets have reported material that supports the claims of Romney and Bain Capital.

Last week, FactCheck.org re-published part of an Associated Press story from April 1999, two months after Romney took the Olympic job, which reported he had little time for anything else. Even celebrations of his wife's 50th birthday and the couple's 30th wedding anniversary reportedly had to be canceled. The AP also quoted a Romney friend, Bob White, as saying "Right now, he's doing two, maybe three fulltime jobs," running the Olympics. As an elite competitor might log endless time in weight and film rooms, Romney put in 112-hour weeks at the beginning of his tenure as chief executive of the Games, the AP reported.

Fortune magazine reported Thursday that it had obtained confidential offering documents Bain Capital gave to prospective investors in 2000, ahead of the launch of its seventh private equity fund. The prospectus lists "certain investment professionals responsible for the day-to-day affairs of the Brookside and Sankaty funds, which are affiliated funds of Fund VII." Fortune noted that Romney was not among the 18 managers identified in the documents.

[Ed W]

Michael, those posts are simply drawing away from an indefensible position and diverting to a personal attack. His forte. The subject is Romney and Bain. Apparently "he who must not be mentioned" believes that Romney is lying about his tenure at Bain and therefore this is only another attempt by you to address the subject of lying, this time by a Republican. But its not about you, Obama's college days, birth certificates or police uniforms. Its Romney and his Bain years....

There is something about this candidate that indicates wavering integrity at many levels and a propensity to think he is somehow deserving and should be immune from criticism of his past. If we can't analyze, question, praise and criticize what do we have? His looks? Ok, he is clean and has a fine looking wife.

Well, we got that already.

I may have linked to this previously, but it's appropriate for this thread:

I found myself discussing this situation with several colleagues, and we agreed that Romney doesn't lie. Let me repeat: Mitt Romney doesn't lie. He is telling the truth as he sees it — and truth it is, the facts notwithstanding. ....two Mormon elders who were questioned about the inconsistency in passages from the Book of Mormon said, "We know the Book of Mormon is true and that it contains the Word of God even in the face of evidence that appears contradictory," according to The Mormon Missionaries by former Mormon Janice Hutchison. Thus there are no lies, only faith-based certainty that translates as truth for which no apology is needed, since what was said was not a lie.

...This unwavering faith is central to Romney's comfort in deflecting any examples that the press might bring up of his lying. Further, it allows him to repeat lies again and again — both personally and in political advertising — because to him they are not lies at all. I'm reminded of that old epigram from the 1960s: "My mind is made up; don't confuse me with the facts." That may be all good and well in many offices, but it's not so good in the Oval Office.

http://ideas.time.com/2012/06/13/the-root-of-mitt-romneys-comfort-with-lying/#ixzz20kKMaDkK

I've met people whose every word is the truth. They're called sociopaths.

"All lies and jest,
Still a man hears what he wants to hear.
And disregards the rest."
.........Paul Simon, "The Boxer"

[nathanm]

Nothing new.  You have to pass it to know what's in it.

I think you've been watching too much Fox (or listening to too much KRMG). You're starting to write like the loudmouths talk. Keep deflecting, if you must.