Allegations of lies on both sides over Romney ‘outsourcing’ claims

Posted on: 12:34 pm, July 12, 2012, by Eli Stokols, updated on: 07:15pm, July 12, 2012

DENVER — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is firing back at President Obama’s attacks with a new television ad accusing the President of lying in charging that Romney outsourced jobs while running Boston’s Bain Capital.

In the new ad, which is airing in Colorado and other swing states, Romney cites the independent fact-checking organization, FactCheck.org, which found that much of the outsourcing at Bain happened after Romney left the firm in 1999.

“When a president doesn’t tell the truth, how can we trust him to lead?” the narrator says at the beginning of the ad.

But Romney’s claim that he left Bain in 1999, his primary defense against charges that he was part of laying off American workers and shipping jobs overseas, is now in question.

The Boston Globe reported Thursday that Romney actually remained the CEO of Bain three years longer than he’s stated, publishing Securities and Exchange Filings showing that Romney continued to be listed as Bain’s “sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer and president” until 2002.

“Government documents filed by Mitt Romney and Bain Capital say Romney remained chief executive and chairman of the firm three years beyond the date he said he ceded control, even creating five new investment partnerships during that time,” Globe reporters Callum Borchers and Christopher Rowland wrote in the Globe.

Additionally, Massachusetts state documents show that Romney owned 100 percent of Bain in 2002, and that he earned at least $100,000 as an executive of Bain in 2001 and 2002.

Romney’s campaign emphatically reaffirmed Thursday that Romney indeed left Bain in 1999 to run the Salt Lake City Winter Games and that has name only remained on SEC paperwork for legal technicalities.

“The article is not accurate,” Romney press secretary Andrea Saul said in a statement. “As Bain Capital has said, as Gov. Romney has said, and as has been confirmed by independent fact checkers multiple times, Gov. 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.”

In an interview with FOX31 Denver, RNC Spokesman Sean Spicer said the allegation doesn’t make sense.

“He was in Salt Lake City, running the day-to-day of the Olympics,” Spicer said. “You cannot be in two places at once.”

In the Globe’s report, an anonymous Romney campaign official acknowledged that the SEC filings “do not square with common sense.”

Following the story Thursday, the Obama campaign went on the attack, with deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter calling Romney “the most secretive candidate to run for president since Richard Nixon.”

If Romney indeed lied to the SEC about when he stepped down as CEO, it could be a felony offense, the Obama campaign suggested.

In Colorado on Tuesday, Romney began an effort to rebut the outsourcing charge by turning it back on President Obama, who, Romney argued, is the real “outsourcer-in-chief” for giving federal stimulus dollars to new energy companies that rely heavily on products that are made overseas.