‘Prove It’: Obama Campaign Presses Romney For Bain Departure Details

[ProSense]

‘Prove It’: Obama Campaign Presses Romney For Bain Departure Details

Benjy Sarlin

The Obama campaign is challenging Mitt Romney to release more information about his taxes and time at Bain Capital in order to put to bed questions raised by SEC filings regarding his role at the company.

“If the SEC filings aren’t accurate, then prove it,” Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter told reporters on Thursday. “If he wasn’t investing millions of dollars in shell corporations, tax havens, Swiss bank accounts overseas to gain a tax advantage, then prove it. Prove it by releasing your tax returns.”

Romney said he left any managerial role at Bain Capital behind in February 1999, delegating all voting shares of stock to 26 managing directors and leaving day-to-day operations to focus on running the Olympics. But subsequent SEC filings list him as “sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president.” A 2001 SEC filing first reported by TPM lists his “principal occupation” as “Managing Director of Bain Capital, Inc.” and the Boston Globe reviewed additional filings containing similar claims.

Media fact-checkers have dismissed a number of previous Obama attacks on Bain Capital by noting that various companies where layoffs or outsourcing occurred under Bain were acquired after 1999, thereby absolving Romney of responsibility. The Obama campaign claims that Romney’s presence in numerous SEC filings related to Bain and affiliated companies should push the window to 2001 and force a re-evaluation. Both the Washington Post’s blogger The Fact Checker and FactCheck.org said they were unmoved by the latest reports. The Post noted that there are no contemporary reports of Romney being involved with major company decisions during the period in question, despite being listed as owner, sole stockholder, CEO and “managing director.”

- more -

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/obama-bain-romney-prove-it.php

Romney went from insisting the Globe story was inaccurate to claiming that this is all about a "quirk" in the law: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002935930

[Cali_Democrat]

1. Exactly

Let's see those tax returns from 1999 to 2002. In fact, Romney needs to release ALL his tax returns since 1999.

[GarroHorus]

2. They've already got Rmoney to change his story once

I'm betting the Obama campaign knows PRECISELY what went on with Bain and Rmoney.

[ProSense]

3. Factcheck.org is

trying to dance around this.

<...>

But Jackson said that FactCheck.org would "reassess" their analysis if Romney had been involved in management decisions after February 1999.

"We would reassess our judgment should somebody come up with evidence that Romney took part in any specific management decision or had any active role (not just a title) at Bain after he left to head the Olympics," Jackson wrote. "But in our considered judgment, nothing in the Globe story directly contradicts Romney's statements -- which he has certified as true under pain of federal prosecution -- that he 'has not had any active role' with Bain or 'been involved in the operations' of Bain since then."

Asked whether Romney would be guilty of a federal felony if he had taken part in management decisions or had an active role at Bain after February 1999, Jackson replied:

He would certainly be open to a federal charge for violation of 18 USC 1001.

But it would be up to a prosecutor to decide whether to press charges, and then up to a judge or jury to decide guilt.

It's a fact that people have gone to prison for violating that law. Our point is that the legal equivalent of a sworn statement carries some weight as evidence -- more than a campaign press release, for example.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/07/factcheckorg-little-new-in-globe-story-128751.html

[DCKit]

4. A Willard Romney/Alan West ticket is the only answer for the GOP.

Between the two of them, we'd have so many lies and crazy statements to deal with that WE couldn't keep up. They'd crash the Internets and cause a total information blackout.

He's your only hope Mittens.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

5. Since he was sole shareholder and managing director

let's see copies of the Minutes of annual shareholder meetings as well as all minutes of meetings of the board of directors regarding decisions and activities of the company.