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Mitt Romney, liar.

Well, the Yahoo news story on this says....

The Washington Post's Fact Checker, which had previously looked into the question of when Romney left Bain, said in a piece published Thursday morning that it stood behind its earlier finding that Romney was not technically running the company, even if his name was on legal documents.

"Just because you are listed as an owner of shares does not mean you have a managerial role," Glenn Kessler, who authors the Post's Fact Checker section, wrote.
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Seems like a technicality to me and that feels a little slimy.

IA-also-NAL but I have to wonder if the SEC will actually let someone get away with "not technically running the company, even if his or her name was on legal documents"?

There have to be some pretty solid rules on this stuff and the lines are probably pretty well defined so I imagine the SEC wouldn't let the "I wasn't technically running the company" defense stand if your name is all over the paperwork..... but I don't really know.
 
When Mitt Romney took charge of the 2002 Olympics, the event organization was $349 million in the hole. His leadership turned the situation around and in the end they realized a $100 million profit. "Full-time job" doesn't come close to descibe the effort and time Romney put into the resurrection of that dismal mess. Yet we are to believe he spent his time running Bain. No, I think not. Mr. Romney strikes me as the kind of man who threw his heart and soul into the Olympic endeavor. He took on a monumental task and wanted to succeed. He did succeed.
 
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not_so_new said:
Well, the Yahoo news story on this says....



Seems like a technicality to me and that feels a little slimy.

IA-also-NAL but I have to wonder if the SEC will actually let someone get away with "not technically running the company, even if his or her name was on legal documents"?

There have to be some pretty solid rules on this stuff and the lines are probably pretty well defined so I imagine the SEC wouldn't let the "I wasn't technically running the company" defense stand if your name is all over the paperwork..... but I don't really know.
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What if the SEC doesn't think of it as "getting away with" anything?

What if it's actually the other way around? The SEC considers whoever is on the legal documents to be running the company, unless they make a filing notifying the SEC that they are not actually running the company. So if Romney notifies the SEC that he is taking a leave of absence, that takes precedence over the default org structure outlined in the legal docs, and the SEC is satisfied.
 
As to why he lied - here's one opinion. Admittedly, this comes from Daily Kos, so take it with approximately a Mount Everest sized grain of salt:

If Romney really permanently left Bain in 1999 to run the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, he might have been ineligible to run for governor of Massachusetts.
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If he left Bain permanently to chair the Olympics, he would not have qualified to run for governor (because his residency moved to UT). So he had to say then that he was taking a leave of absence. But now that it looks bad to have been in charge, he's saying he wasn't.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/12/1109157/-Why-Romney-flip-flopped-on-Bain-departure-date
 
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theprestige said:
Maybe somebody should find out, before calling "felony".


Maybe somebody should find out, before calling "felony".


You can't? What are the SEC rules here?
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I'm the one quoting an established newspaper and the President's campaign who seem pretty much convinced of this.

You are the one making a claim that needs to be proven, and I don't think you are capable of proving it.
 
BenBurch said:
You have to wonder why, given that he could skate through this and other claims against him by releasing them, why he does not?
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Damn, that's pretty much word for word what the Birthers were saying all along...
 
theprestige said:
What if the SEC doesn't think of it as "getting away with" anything?
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Which was kind of my point wasn't it? I don't know how the SEC would rule on this.

I don't see the SEC letting someone say they are didn't run the company when they have their names all over the paperwork for that same company. I don't have ANY clue how that would shake out but I think it could be worrisome for Romney.

What if it's actually the other way around? The SEC considers whoever is on the legal documents to be running the company, unless they make a filing notifying the SEC that they are not actually running the company. So if Romney notifies the SEC that he is taking a leave of absence, that takes precedence over the default org structure outlined in the legal docs, and the SEC is satisfied.
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I completely agree.... but where these papers filed? Because there seems to be evidence showing Romney was involved with Bain.
 
theprestige said:
IANAL, but it seems to me that one can certainly take a leave of absence, with the following results:
  • No longer involved in the management or operations of the company;
  • No change is made to the organizational structure of the company;
  • Formal documents showing the company organization still list you in the position, even though you are on a leave of absence;
  • No lying happens, and no felony is committed.
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So he was just signing things he never reviewed or checked? It becomes confusing if he is then signing off on things.
 
RandFan said:
Politicians lie. I get that. Thing is Romney lies so effortlessly. And being caught in a lie doesn't phase him in the least. "Tell me what you want to hear" should be his motto.
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That's why this man should be President.
 
Dumb All Over said:
When Mitt Romney took charge of the 2002 Olympics, the event organization was $349 million in the hole. His leadership turned the situation around and in the end they realized a $100 million profit. "Full-time job" doesn't come close to descibe the effort and time Romney put into the resurrection of that dismal mess. Yet we are to believe he spent his time running Bain. No, I think not. Mr. Romney strikes me as the kind of man who threw his heart and soul into the Olympic endeavor. He took on a monumental task and wanted to succeed. He did succeed.
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Just like he single handedly saved the american auto industry!
 
Sam.I.Am said:
Damn, that's pretty much word for word what the Birthers were saying all along...
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Except that's not a good comparison;

1. Obama had already released what they wanted, they just didn't believe it, and no other Presidential candidates have ever been asked for their birth certificates in my memory, whereas Romney has not released returns on the asked-for tax years.

2. Nothing at all was a mystery about where Obama was born, not one thing, whereas we don't know a thing about what is on Romney's taxes, and taxes are things that presidential candidates routinely release.

Finally, the fact that some stick-stone-bone stupid people made a ridiculous demand for disclosure about a non-issue does not take anything at all away from a demand for disclosure from some of the brightest lights in American journalism for information that could indeed be material to a Presidential candidate's character and fitness.

To maintain otherwise simply isn't logical.
 
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not_so_new said:
Which was kind of my point wasn't it? I don't know how the SEC would rule on this.

I don't see the SEC letting someone say they are didn't run the company when they have their names all over the paperwork for that same company. I don't have ANY clue how that would shake out but I think it could be worrisome for Romney.
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It seems to me that the law says that he was legally responsible for any SEC violations that his company made even while he wasn't there. Nothing new there. All bosses are legally responsible for making sure that their company complies with statutory regulations and laws at all times. That doesn't mean that they are there every day or that they are making the decisions. It's just as easy to put someone that you trust to follow the law behind the wheel and just make sure that they aren't breaking the law, and even that can be done by proxy through lawyers and accountants (or whatever) and a stack of papers to sign crossed his desk once a week or whatever.

To the best of my knowledge nobody is claiming that they were doing something business related that was illegal at Bain that would violate SEC regulations during that time period but if they were, Romney (and whoever actually broke the law) would be legally responsible for it if they did. Much like the Captain of a ship is responsible for everything that goes on on his ship even if it happens while he's away on shore or while he's sleeping in his stateroom. While it may be unwise to leave the helm in the hands of someone else it isn't necessarily illegal to do so. You can delegate authority while still retaining responsibility, it happens all of the time in business.
 
theprestige said:
IANAL, but it seems to me that one can certainly take a leave of absence, with the following results:
  • No longer involved in the management or operations of the company;
  • No change is made to the organizational structure of the company;
  • Formal documents showing the company organization still list you in the position, even though you are on a leave of absence;
  • No lying happens, and no felony is committed.
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I realize that the rules can be different for upper management than for the working stiffs, but at all my jobs people who took leaves of absence to temporarily work for another organization (or to not work at all) were not paid by the organization that they took the leave of absence from.
 
Sam.I.Am said:
To the best of my knowledge nobody is claiming that they were doing something business related that was illegal at Bain...
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The charge being made by the Obama campaign isn't that Bain was doing something illegal. It's that Bain was doing things many voters would not approve of. Things such as outsourcing "off-shoring" US jobs. Things such as loading companies up with debt, using the money to pay off investors, and letting the company go under. These might be good ways to accumulate personal wealth (as Romney did); but the Democrats are arguing these are not good ways to run a country.

Much like the Captain of a ship is responsible for everything that goes on on his ship even if it happens while he's away on shore or while he's sleeping in his stateroom.
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Precisely! The Democrat's argument as I understand it is that Romney, as captain of the ship, shares the responsibility for the jobs lost and companies destroyed -- even if he wasn't personally at the helm when these happened.
 
Upchurch said:
FactCheck.org stands by their original assessment yet again. This does include the recent revelations.
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"But we see little new in any of these SEC filings, and a University of Pennsylvania Law School professor we spoke to sees no basis for the Obama campaign’s claim that Romney committed a felony."

Wait. Whose claim was it again? The word "felony" does not appear once in the six-page letter referenced in the July 2nd FactCheck piece... oh yeah. It was FactCheck's claim:

"If the Obama campaign is correct, then Romney is guilty of lying on official federal disclosure forms, committing a felony. But we don’t see evidence of that."

It looks like FactCheck is primarily focused on its own reputation at this point.
 
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