Thursday, July 12, 2012

Mitt Romney's newest lie may be a felony (actually 3)

In order to evade responsibility for Bain Capital's behavior (including outsourcing American jobs), Mitt Romney has repeatedly claimed he left the company in 1999 to run the Salt Lake City Olympics, ending his role in the company.
     But the Boston Globe says that's not what he told the Security and Exchange Commission. Filings show he actually remained the firm’s “sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president.”
     Clearly, Romney has been caught in yet another lie; the only question is: Was he lying then or is he lying now? If now, then he's "merely" trying to dupe voters. If he was lying in 2000, 2001 and 2002, then he committed at least three felonies.
     Obama campaign lawyer Robert Bauer said Thursday that there could be “severe consequences” for individuals and companies that lied to the SEC.
“If in fact as he now claims that he was not active with the company, that he was not the controlling person that is described here, that means that these statements are false and as I said, there are very, very serious legal consequences that would follow,” Bauer explained.
     “Of particular consequence would be a misrepresentation that involves a controlling person,” he added. “And as these representations show, Romney is the controlling person. You know, he is the person who is the sole stockholder, the chairman of the board, the chief executive officer and the president. And the consequences for the controlling person of this sort of potential misrepresentation — and frankly on this record, it appears by his own words — absolute misrepresentation because he’s now saying none of this matters, none of this is true.”
     “[It's] very, very serious. And in the normal course would subject somebody in this position to every manner of investigation with all the consequences that you can imagine that would follow.”
Romney advisor Matt McDonald apparently doesn't see a problem, just as long as his guy was only deceiving voters:
“They are not saying that he would be guilty of a federal felony [just] for saying he left in 1999.”

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