OBAMA TEAM: Romney Committed A FELONY OR LIED To Voters [View all]

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" Mitt Romney either lied in federal filings that show he worked at Bain Capital through 2002 and could be guilty of a felony, or has lied to the American people in saying he left the company in 1999, the Obama campaign is arguing in light of news reports on the firm’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. “This is serious business,” said Bob Bauer, the Obama campaign’s counsel, in a conference call for reporters coming after the Boston Globe published a story Thursday that calls into question the timeline of Romney’s involvement of the firm that the Republican candidate has been promulgating for years. Deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter laid out the issue as the Obama team sees it: “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," she said, "he was misrepresenting his position at Bain to the American people to avoid responsibility for some of the consequences of his investments,” including layoffs and the outsourcing of jobs. If the latter is true, she said, it’s a “real character and trust issue” that voters should be aware of as they decide who to vote for in the presidential election. If Romney was still at Bain through 2002, he's also "politically responsible for the consequences" of deals that the firm made through then. Andrea Saul, the Romney campaign's press secretary, countered that the Globe's "article is not accurate" because"[a]s 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."



The emergence of the SEC filings appears to conflict with that, the Obama campaign contends. There are “literally scores of filings that make it very, very clear that over a period of time that Gov. Romney claims that he was not active with Bain, the Securities and Exchange Commission was informed” that Romney was the chief executive officer, chairman of the board and sole shareholder of the company, Bauer said. SEC filings "are very carefully scrutinized by lawyers because of the very severe consequences that follow from making statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission that are not correct," he said. And if that's the case, and Romney's role in the firm was misrepresented in filings, "in the normal course would subject somebody in this position to every manner of investigation with all the consequences that you can imagine would follow."




People who interacted with Romney at Bain between 1999 and 2002 -- and who would corroborate the storyline suggested by the SEC filings -- haven't emerged. Nor have documents or other details that would suggest Romney has been lying about when he left the company. But, Bauer hinted, there might be new developments to come. “I would stay very much tuned on that,” he said.







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http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/07/obama-team-romney-committed-a-felony-or-lied-to-voters-128757.html