Hullabaloo

Friday, July 13, 2012

 
Well if a Democrat says it ...

by digby

Here's a blockbuster that pretty much closes the book on the Romney Bain story:

[I]s there anything other than the SEC filings to suggest a hands-on Romney role at Bain post-February 1999?No is the word from four sources who communicated with CNN on Thursday -- all of whom have firsthand knowledge of Bain's operations at the time in question. Three of the four are Democrats, and two of the four are active Obama supporters in Campaign 2012.

Only one, Bain Managing Director Steve Pagliuca, would talk on the record. The others spoke only on condition of anonymity, citing either Bain's low-key culture or the desire not to anger friends in the Obama campaign.

Pagliuca, a Democrat who unsuccessfully ran for Senate in 2010, told CNN: "Mitt Romney left Bain Capital in February 1999 to run the Olympics and has had absolutely no involvement with the management or investment activities of the firm or with any of its portfolio companies since the day of his departure."

Well that tears it. Four Democrats and Obama supporter have spoken. Why on earth would they step forward if it weren't true?

Yeah, right.

In fairness, John King (who wrote this piece) does admit in paragraph 17:

To be clear, all four of the sources voiced professional loyalty and personal respect for Romney. And all four have a vested interest in defending the work of Bain. But they were consistent in describing Romney's departure as abrupt and in saying they could not recall him around the office in the months that followed.

Call me crazy but I don't think the "consistency" of their accounts is all that meaningful in this case. There has been a teensy bit of discussion about all this in the news. I'd guess there might be some whispers at the Bain water cooler too.

Look, there's good reason to wonder about this. Mitt filed reports with the SEC as sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president long after he had supposedly "retired" or "taken a leave of absence" or whatever it was. Whether he showed up at the office every day doesn't really matter, the company was still legally his. And therefore, whatever happened at that company he was still legally responsible for.

Look at it this way, guys like Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling also tried to say they didn't know what was going on and Enron and couldn't be held responsible for details. The law disagreed. That's not to say that Bain did anything illegal during that period, but the underlying principle is the same. If your name is on the legal paperwork, you're responsible.

It would be interesting to know what job title Mitt put on this income tax returns those years but he won't release them. Maybe that's part of the reason why.



h/t conservativeslayer in comments
digby 7/13/2012 04:30:00 PM