Even though Mitt Romney’s attempt to elude responsibility for Bain’s fuck ups has the air of someone who lays a big turd in the pot and blames the guy who flushed it for the clog, the media has been more-or-less buying his bullshit excuse that he left Bain in 1999. That just got harder:
Government documents filed by Mitt Romney and Bain Capital say Romney remained chief executive and chairman of the firm three years beyond the date he said he ceded control, even creating five new investment partnerships during that time.
Romney has said he left Bain in 1999 to lead the winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, ending his role in the company. But public Securities and Exchange Commission documents filed later by Bain Capital state he remained the firm’s “sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president.”
Also, a Massachusetts financial disclosure form Romney filed in 2003 states that he still owned 100 percent of Bain Capital in 2002. And Romney’s state financial disclosure forms indicate he earned at least $100,000 as a Bain “executive” in 2001 and 2002, separate from investment earnings.
What I love about stories based on SEC filings is that the only defense is some kind of hedging, too cute by half, obvious bullshit lie, like making a distinction between “offshoring” and “outsourcing”. Romney looks like a liar because he lied, then he looks like a liar because he lied about lying.
the Conster
I hope the SEC is ready for their kerning to be analyzed. Rmoney and Paterno’s ghost will be competing for the lying liar of the day award.
cathyx
I love your analogy about the turd. I’m going to have to use that one sometime.
Roger Moore
Also, too, SEC forms are a lot harder to disclaim years later than most of the stuff he lies about. Lying on those SEC forms is a felony, which is not something you want to cop to in the middle of your Presidential campaign.
RedKitten
Sigh…you would HOPE, in this digital age, where it is so easy to prove that someone’s lying, that the media would have pounced on this stuff ages ago.
But I dream big, don’t I?
Fuck, I would not trust Romney if he told me what time of day it was.
jayjaybear
I just want to note that I think “Mitt Or Get Off The Pot” is possibly the best tag ever.
Nina
Rove is probably hitting the roof on his blood pressure these days.
He made his name on the tactic of attacking your opponent on their strengths, turning strengths into liabilities. Well, Bain is just turning out to be one gigantic political liability, and Rove has no idea about how to turn that around.
smintheus
This is a job for FactCheck.org. Can’t wait to see the hissy fit they throw.
Walker
Hopefully this is the last nail in the coffin of the “fact checkers”. Politifact already destroyed its brand, and this should take down FactCheck.org. And good riddance; their abuse of the concept of a “fact” was getting out of hand.
PeakVT
Let’s see if anyone besides Krugthulu deploys the L-word in response.
OT: The Freeh/Penn State report just dropped. A separate thread for that might be good.
soonergrunt
But you realize that the majority of the press will do nothing with this story except perhaps to complain about how unfair it is to attack Romney for making money and being successful in the capitalist system.
Cacti
But FactCheck.org said that claims of Romney still being with Bain after 1999 were “all wet”.
Both sides do it, also, too.
Redshift
In addition, the attempts at lying about it just re-emphasize that he had ways of manipulating his employment and money that aren’t available to all the voters who got screwed over by people like him in the crash.
General Stuck
There really isn’t anything Romney can do to stop the disclosure of his past behavior with a trail of financial disclosure documents. He is the Sherman, and Obama the Mr. Peabody, providing new parables via pol ads for the FUBAR that is Mitt’s campaign. With the WABAC Machine gassed up and ready to go. My only fear is that at some point it all could make me feel pity for Romney and the nutters. Though I wouldn’t tell if it did.
dmsilev
Hang on, let’s not be too hasty here. Has anyone verified the kerning on those SEC reports? What about the countertops at the SEC? That’s important to check as well. Also, too, Obama steadfastly refuses to release his 3rd grade report card; what is he hiding?
Mudge
I wonder what’s in Romney’s tax returns for those years.
japa21
Okay, I was doing some thinking over this whole “When did Romney leave Bain?” hullabaloo. For the moment I am going to give Romney the benefit of the doubt and say that he did leave Bain in 1999 to take over the Olympics. Romney’s story is that running the Olympics took so much of his time, he didn’t have any left over to work at Bain. Let’s accept that thesis (as doubtful as it is). What does that tell us about Romney?
Basically, that he wouldn’t be a very good President. Running the country is far more demanding than running the Olympics. It involves far more skills at multi-tasking and delegation than Romney has ever faced in his life. What Romney’s rationale basically states is that he is neither a mutli-tasker or a good delegator. Therefore, not qualified to be President.
kindness
Romney is the best the Republicans got?
I mean, we all saw the overflowing clown car that was the Republican primary this year. In all honesty the only ones with any integrity there were either never considered or left before the 3rd primary.
I know the actual leaders of the party, the Kochs, the industrial leaders and their pawns (Rove, the religious right, the teahaddists) want whomever they feel is most pliable and electable. But to end up with Romney and say he’s the best they’ve got? Unpossible. I can’t believe it.
General Stuck
@Cacti:
If I remember correctly, FactCheck also said that Romney would be committing a crime if he was involved with running Bain during his leave of absence. Or maybe I just dreamed that. It is getting hard to keep all the bullshit sorted out in it’s proper piles.
Face
Cant wait to hear about the granite countertops in the SEC breakroom.
Roger Moore
So, when does the other shoe drop and it turns out that at least one of the new companies Romney created while a Bain was involved in the Olympic bailout?
Countme In
Look for Romney’s second act as President to be defunding the SEC.
I understand the other day he went in front of the NAACP, and after asking “Who let the dogs out? Woof, woof” and exchanging funky handshakes with his betters on the dias, he promised to rescind the Emancipation Proclamation to drive down labor costs.
Then he stepped into full view to the side of the dias and engaged in some Mitt-does-Billy Crystal-does Sammy Davis Junior break dancing, ending with his head inserted firmly up his lying white ass.
His poll numbers jumped six points among white independents south of the Mason-Dixon and in the Cincinnati suburbs.
waynski
@Roger Moore: I doubt he lied to the SEC. He lied to the public. He’s learned there’s no consequences for that these days whatsoever.
smintheus
Romney is also making himself out to be a con artist if not a crook. He’s claiming that that SEC filings he approved were false. Anyone who invested money based on those filings can sue him for misrepresenting the true nature of Bain and for overstating his role in running it.
So now we have a presidential candidate who cons investors and stashes money away in tax havens overseas.
dmsilev
Hah.
That’s the best answer the Romney campaign can come up with? A document saying he’s the “sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president.” is quirky and complicated and we shouldn’t worry our pretty little heads about it?
Randy
The only thing consistent about Rmoney is his lying.
He’ll lie about anything and everything and things he doesn’t even need to lie about.
smintheus
@General Stuck: That’s exactly what FactCheck said:
Dork
You show me an arrest during a Presidential campaign and I’ll show you a 150 million-strong armed rebellion in The United Red States of America.
cervantes
If we lived in a sane society, this would end Romney’s candidacy. But I predict it will have zero impact.
RaflW
Very fucking lie that gets exposed makes one big lie more and more painfully obvious: media elites are fully, 100% in the tank for Romney. They will not call him out on his lies. There’s too much personal wealth and rent-seeking on the line.
I just see more and more culpability. It is interesting to see that Britain’s press is not failing them as our’s is us. They’re throwing off the yolk of Murdoch, and I think that helps. They’ve been emboldened by the hacking scandal and see Rupe on the ropes, so the press there is covering the latest bankster outrage with, well, outrage.
Here we will get mild clucking and a deference to the mega-lie: job creators!
Roger Moore
@smintheus:
Actually, he’s claiming that the SEC filings he approved don’t mean what you think they mean. He’s saying that technically he was president, CEO, and 100% owner, for SEC purposes but that he had no control over the company for purposes of his election filings. And if you believe that, I have a friend in Nigeria who would like to wire you millions of dollars.
Mike Furlan
@Nina:
Rove will have no problem altering the facts about Romney.
He has lots of money.
He has lots of tricks:
http://www.webster.edu/medialiteracy/journal/…/FINALKARLROVE.doc
General Stuck
@cervantes:
I wouldn’t argue with this in the current country we live in. But I think it would mark a first for a major party nominee and candidate for president that was also a person of interest.
Cacti
@waynski:
I’m thinking that Romney has received the super-secretive second endowment in Mormonism. That’s the one that gives you pre-clearance to commit any sin except shed innocent blood or betray the Mormon Church.
Davis X. Machina
Monarchies work that way. The person of the King doesn’t matter. The King-in-His-Person can be a very fallible creature indeed. What matters is the King-in-His-Majesty, bestowed with the Mandate of Heaven. The King-in-His-Person can err, or more likely be misled by his advisors. The King-in-His-Majesty cannot.
Money is the Mandate of Heaven.
These people don’t read Madison, Hamilton and Jay. They read Bossuet.
The strangest metamorphosis over time in our political terminology isn’t what happened to ‘liberal’ since John Stuart Mill’s day — it’s what’s happened to ‘republican’. Now it’s a synonym for ‘monarchist’.
General Stuck
@smintheus:
Thanks, I thought that was it.
Roger Moore
@RaflW:
That’s “yoke”; “yolk” is something that comes from eggs.
ETA: Though the image of media types cleaning egg off their faces is a good one.
waynski
@smintheus: What financial disclosure forms are they talking about? I know he lobbied Congress for money as the head of the Olympics, so I think you have to register as a lobbyist for that. If those are the forms he lied on, I’d be surprised if it’s anything more than a fine. I’d also be surprised if he lied to the SEC — that’s jail time, so I think they’re talking about something else. The disclosure forms to run for President?
Dungheap
I’m sure this is just another clerical error, like that time he listed his Park City home as his primary residence to avoid paying higher property taxes and which almost scuttled his attempts to run for governor in MA.
Willard sure is an unlucky fellow when it comes to this sort of thing.
Hypatia's Momma
OT but related (lying liars lie):
The Freeh report on the Penn State investigation has been released.
“Alleged” misconduct. A conviction and sentence to life in prison for raping children reduced down to alleged misconduct.
redshirt
It’s as if our country is a giant game of Limbo: How low can you go. Tricky Dick would be held up as a paragon of Republican virtue these days compared to these inveterate liars and ignoramuses they trot out on their fake stages.
Kane
Romney has been in perpetual campaign mode for years and this is his second stab at running for the office of the presidency. But only now, four months before the 2012 general election does someone in the media bother to look at SEC documents!? Amazing.
If the Obama campaign had not been hitting Romney and his Bain connection, the public might have never learned the truth.
Cacti
As the drip, drip, drip of oppo research comes trickling out, it’s becoming clear that Rmoney is uber-shady.
As Axelrod pointed out the other day…
Willard gave 23 years worth of Tax info to John McCain while being vetted for VPOTUS. McCain went with Palin.
catclub
@Randy: Actually there are two things he is consistent about. He will not renounce his Mormonism. The second is all the lying.
hueyplong
The two SEC filing disclosures I saw on TPM listing Romney as an active, managing executive were certified by Mark Nunnelly (2000) and Michael Krupka (2001). Perhaps some enterprising person might ask them if they falsely certified to the SEC. [It’s not like it was a lower level position they were talking about.] Might be fun, also to ask them what the daily duties of that position were.
Certainly Mitt would have us think they were significant and hands-on during the time period he claims to have been “creating jobs” in his patriotic role as a job creator whose taxes cannot ever be restored to the levels seen in happier economic times, lest the Republic slip beneath the waves for good.
Cacti
@Hypatia’s Momma:
Srsly?
It’s not “alleged” anymore. Sandusky = guilty as charged on 45 counts.
maya
Did anyone check those SEC filing papers? Huh? Did they use the proper Mormon/ Bain jargon? Were they typed using an IBM Daisy Ball printer that wasn’t even invented yet? Huh? Huh? Huh?
Scott S.
So how bad is this? Is this just one of those corporate things that’ll get swept under the table because it looks bad but didn’t hurt much of anyone? Or is this a Bernie Madoff-style vast defrauding that’ll get serious attention from law enforcement?
Is there any chance that we’ll get to enjoy one last mad scramble for the convention’s finish line because the frontrunner went and got himself arrested for defrauding investors?
Mudge
@Hypatia’s Momma: To be fair, at the time of all of the Penn State shenanigans, the abuse was still alleged.
arguingwithsignposts
@dmsilev: “do not square with common sense.”
LOLWUT?
the Conster
CNN’s national political correspondent Jim Acosta just reported about the Bain story and they showed the Globe’s story – he’s outside of the NCAAP convention and thinks it’s going to be “very interesting” and “possibly important” thinks Biden will mention it today. Stay tuned….
Villago Delenda Est
@Nina:
Karl Rove’s pain is my pleasure.
It delights me that he’s in distress.
I love it when the evil are in pain.
amk
Hey mistermix, wtf happened to my post ?
redshirt
@Villago Delenda Est: Ramen! I want these evil fucks to suffer.
I’m always questioning how stupid all the Repugs seem – as in, “They can’t be this stupid, can they”? The answer is almost always, yes. Definitely yes.
Romney is a TERRIBLE candidate. The worst. But the funny part is he really is the best they have. They’ve decimated their own ranks buying into their own propaganda.
Bulworth
@soonergrunt: Yeah and somebody who once worked for Obama campaign somewhere mispoke about something so it’s all good Both Sides Do It!
Villago Delenda Est
@Hypatia’s Momma:
Freeh is an utter idiot. Anyone who appoints him to “investigate” something does so to avoid an actual revelation of facts.
Redshift
@dmsilev:
You’re thinking too small. Obama controls the SEC, and he’s making them fake all of these documents to steal the election. Romney’s people are befuddled because that’s not what they signed but they can’t prove it because it was a long time ago and who knows where their copies are…
I would honestly be surprised if there isn’t already a wingnut site pushing this theory.
smintheus
@Cacti: Back in 2008 when McCain had been concern-trolling Obama for not picking the runner-up (Hilary) as his running mate, that he then turned around and rejected the Republican runner-up.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore:
Actually, someone else should clean the egg off their faces.
Because their faces should be on pikes.
quannlace
What if this actually happened? Who do you think the GOP would scramble to replace him?
Legalize
Wasn’t this a Sopranos story line?
dedc79
It’s a pretty strange defense to say “Hey, don’t believe our official filings to the SEC, believe what I tell you now when I’m running for President”
Villago Delenda Est
@dmsilev:
Afraid to use his real name. He’s an Rmoney man, through and through. A coward just like the disgusting sack of Mitt that is his boss.
Terry Ott
@japa21:
The explanation I would offer, were I Romney, is this:
(1) While on a leave of absence, not knowing what one is going to do after that ends, why would someone remove himself from the position of company CEO of record, even if s/he had no active involvement in its management while on leave?
(2) Part of being an accountable and forward-thinking executive involves grooming great people to take over in your absence, either permanent or temporary. It’s called “succession planning”. (Note: As an aspect of this, the eminently successful global firm I co-owned told its key people to go away for 5 consecutive weeks every 5 years, during which no one at the firm was to call you, you were not to be on e-mail or go to the firm’s website, or call anyone at the firm or at its client companies, etc. The idea for the staff was “pretend Joe is dead, and get the work done anyway.”
(3) Let’s say a CEO and Owner is disabled by virtue of a terrible accident or tragic event, and subsequently is working 24/7 on rehabilitation toward full recovery. The doc tells him, “for the next xx number of months, maybe longer, your ONLY JOB is to work on becoming able to live productively for the next 30+ years. If you get yourself involved in the business of your company, you will be invited to find another doctor within a month.”
redshirt
@quannlace: SARAH TIME! This is what she’s been waiting for!
Fun conspiracy scenario – Sarah – devious, cunning creature she is – got hold of Rmoney’s vetting report by the McCain camp and saw all those terrible skeletons.
So as the 2012 campaign rolls along and Rmoney looks to be unstoppable, she sits on the sidelines letting the primary fools beat each other up, knowing she’s got a dagger to Rmoney’s heart when she wants to play it.
Right before the convention!
Jebediah
@japa21:
delegator, alligator, it’s all a croc.
ETA: My apologies to all. I apparently have the wit of a five-year-old.
Roger Moore
@dedc79:
I think what they’re trying to say is that the SEC filings are technical documents, and the things they say in those filings are intended to comply with weird Federal regulations. That doesn’t necessarily mean they agree with the ordinary English meanings of the stuff they’re saying. It’s not the strongest defense- if you’re arguing technicalities, you’re losing in the court of public opinion- but it’s probably the best they’ve got.
Shorter: It depends on what the meaning of “is” is.
Hypatia's Momma
@Mudge:
Penn State trustees issue Freeh report response.
Their response was given today, weeks after Sandusky was convicted and sentenced.
Linda Featheringill
I suspect that Romney did not lie to the SEC. But in case I’m wrong, I’m sure there are ways of investigating that and am confident that someone is digging for evidence even as we speak. It looks like he is really boxed in on this one.
Saying one thing while leaving a paper trail to the contrary is so dumb.
ETA:
Maybe Romney thought that nobody would be willing to do the labor involved in bringing that evidence to the public. A reasonable assumption but wrong.
dedc79
@Roger Moore: Right even more strange because SEC filings aren’t just technical documents – they are public statements regarding the company and how it’s being run.
Jebediah
@RaflW:
That sounds really icky.
hueyplong
(1) While on a leave of absence, not knowing what one is going to do after that ends, why would someone remove himself from the position of company CEO of record, even if s/he had no active involvement in its management while on leave? Of course, you could explain this in your filings, you know, if you were making disclosures and all.
(2) Part of being an accountable and forward-thinking executive involves grooming great people to take over in your absence, either permanent or temporary. It’s called “succession planning”. (Note: As an aspect of this, the eminently successful global firm I co-owned told its key people to go away for 5 consecutive weeks every 5 years, during which no one at the firm was to call you, you were not to be on e-mail or go to the firm’s website, or call anyone at the firm or at its client companies, etc. The idea for the staff was “pretend Joe is dead, and get the work done anyway.” I invite them to try to make this argument. That would be great. By the way, Romney’s time frame here is a little longer, and we’re only hearing about how the filing doesn’t describe reality when it’s suddenly politically damaging to do so.
(3) Let’s say a CEO and Owner is disabled by virtue of a terrible accident or tragic event, and subsequently is working 24/7 on rehabilitation toward full recovery. The doc tells him, “for the next xx number of months, maybe longer, your ONLY JOB is to work on becoming able to live productively for the next 30+ years. If you get yourself involved in the business of your company, you will be invited to find another doctor within a month.” What on earth does this scenario have to do with what we’re discussing? And it doesn’t even help Mitt, because this fact pattern has the CEO saying, “hell no, I’m not stepping away, I’m continuing my job.”
I’m struggling to see why this isn’t perceived as stone stupid.
the Conster
@Terry Ott:
The definition of being sole shareholder, chairman of the board, CEO and president is that only you can make decisions about what the company does, then put them into effect. If he wasn’t chairman of the board or CEO, he could make some claim about not knowing, perhaps. But claiming that not knowing what was going on in the company doesn’t “square with common sense” is the only true thing that the Romney camp can say about this. They’re fucked.
Kane
In one breath he claims that he was an incredibly successful businessman, and in the next breath he claims that he had nothing to do with his investments, his shell company in Bermuda, his dealings in the Cayman Islands, his Swiss bank accounts, or in his being a pioneer in outsourcing while at Bain.
amk
Here is politico to mittbot’s defense – Globe writer didn’t give credit to the earlier scooppers, TPM and motherjones.
scav
@Kane: Didn’t you watch the Mudochs? Rebeckah of the Hair? Uberlord Diamond? It’s the Hot New Management Style!
redshirt
@Kane: This is Rmoney’s campaign in a nutshell, and what would probably doom him even if he was a far more skilled Politician – he must deny most if not all of his legitimate accomplishments in order to pander to the crazy. Without the crazy, he does not get the nomination. But by pandering, he drives everyone else away.
Legitimately, his stint as Mass governor could be used to good effect in a campaign. But not this campaign.
He’s super senior in the Mormon church, but cannot mention it.
He’s probably got fairly moderate views that would play well with large swathes of the population – but he can’t admit this.
Boxed in Mitt. So sad.
Roy G.
Well, since Tunch is more of a danger to Cole than the SEC is to Wall Street liars and thieves, this form is the hardest they’ve come down on anybody since…?
To put it another way, absent the form, if there was an actual SEC ‘investigation,’ it would have produced the ‘nothing to see here folks’ response that Rmoney desired.
Davis X. Machina
@Jebediah: Here, you’re over-qualified.
RSA
@Roger Moore:
I especially liked this bit in the article:
Either way Romney’s in trouble.
Roger Moore
@Linda Featheringill:
Not a reasonable assumption. Presidential candidates have hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on their campaigns, plus untold hours of volunteer labor. Assuming you can bury something that shows up in publicly available documents from that kind of organization is crazy.
amk
@Kane: Tweeting that.
maya
@the Conster:
You forget that that’s exactly what Cheney said about the dummy, off-shore subsidiary that was set up to evade US law and do bidness with Iran and Iraq while he was President and CEO of Halliburton. He just claimed he didn’t know anything about it and the MSM dropped it.
Mitt will invoke the Cheney Defense.
burnspbesq
I just had an odd thought:
What would happen if some enterprising blogger submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for Romney’s FBARs?
burnspbesq
@Villago Delenda Est:
It might have been wise to, umm, read the report before making yourself look foolish with this statement.
Frankensteinbeck
@Roy G.:
I will miss Cole when Tunch finally decides to sleep on his chest.
jayjaybear
@burnspbesq: I’ve heard people saying that the reason the Board of Trustees looks like new-fallen snow in that report is that they tasked Freeh with making it that way. I don’t know one way or another, but even a report that comes down hard on Paterno, Curley, Spanier and Schultz can be seen as slanted if you suspect the Board was involved as well.
On the other hand, the Board doesn’t have a lot of hands-on involvement with the athletic program, so it’s entirely plausible that they all WERE simon-pure in the situation.
jayjaybear
@Frankensteinbeck:
FTFY
smintheus
@amk: that’s rich coming from Politico. Last year it swiped a report of mine and then refused point blank to give me credit when I demanded it. The Politico reporter had some bizarre tale about how they’d come up with the same info independently of me, via the same obscure website, and so even though they were following in my footsteps they wouldn’t credit my blog.
Four years ago I noticed a Politico report that was taken in its entirety from an obscure local blogger. I asked the reporter why she hadn’t given credit, and got a breathtakingly arrogant response to the effect that it was Politico so repackaging the story for a national audience was some kind of good deed and they didn’t stoop to mentioning every little blogger whom they happened to consult.
Politico is a shameless, serial plagiarizing cesspool.
Brachiator
OT, but on target. What a difference a day makes
Biden at the NAACP Convention
Hope Mittens was taking notes.
karen marie
If Romney was not working at Bain, why was he paid $100,000? How come I didn’t get $100,000 from Bain? I wasn’t working there either.
I guess this whole business about getting earning salary and profits as CEO, chair and president while not actually doing any of the work of those positions is just one of those complex things that a “lower income” like me just can’t understand because I “don’t understand how the systems work.”
Gosh, I’m beginning to understand why we need Romney as president. He clearly understands how the systems work.
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq:
Yeah, it was all the fault of the dead guy.
Freeh is covering up for most of the rest of the guilty parties.
But you, a known collaborator with the coverup artists of the Catholic hierarchy (by your adamant refusal to tell them in no uncertain terms by leaving that rancid organization), and your continuing trashing of your own personal integrity by doing so, know where I stand on your opinions, legal or otherwise.
Chris Andersen
Romney’s defense is coming down to a Clintonesque quibbling about the difference between “Owner” and “Active Owner”.
Does he really want to go there?
Xenos
@burnspbesq: The only way I know to get tax returns is from divorce court. Maybe an investor in a Bain-generated security could sue for fraud, and demand the FBARS for execution proceedings. That would take years, of course.