Romney team defiant in response to Bain attack
July 12th, 2012
07:25 PM ET
11 years ago

Romney team defiant in response to Bain attack

Boston (CNN) – Senior advisers to Mitt Romney's campaign are calling the latest round of Bain attacks from Team Obama "an act of desperation" and "beyond the pale."

"Either they don't understand what they are talking about or they are completely reckless," a senior Romney adviser tells CNN.

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Romney's advisers are referring to Thursday's political back-and-forth ignited by a new Boston Globe story maintaining Romney had an active role in overseeing the private equity firm Bain Capital until 2002. The report points to official documents bearing his name as CEO were filed at the time.

The Romney campaign calls the idea "ridiculous," saying the documents were filed with his name because he left abruptly to run the Olympics in February 1999.

Romney has been the target of a relentless multi-million dollar assault by Team Obama over the last several weeks regarding Bain Capital and allegations some of the companies in which it invested outsourced jobs overseas - a contention that the Romney campaign disputes completely. In fact, the campaign earlier Thursday released a full-blown rebuttal of the Obama charges in the form of a television ad, using the criticisms of Obama's campaign staff leveled by newspapers and fact-checking organizations.

Some Republicans charge the Romney team waited too long. "We'd rather be bullet proof and get it right," says a senior Romney adviser. "Obama will have a hard time justifying his charges."

While the Obama campaign clearly sees even more of an opening on the Bain Capital attack front, one senior Romney adviser says the Bain attacks won't get them off its game - relentlessly focusing on the economy. "It is designed to make us change our strategy and it won't."

The Romney campaign calls the Bain attacks "demonstrably false." In fact, one adviser says that for the Obama campaign to suggest that the Bain company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission could be a felony is "beyond the pale." In the end, this adviser predicts, "voters will have a sense of where the boundaries are."

So far, each campaign seems to be testing that premise - Romney has an ad effectively calling the president's team liars, and the Obama campaign has accused Romney's former company of possibly committing a felony.

And it's only July.

- CNN's Kevin Bohn contributed to this story.


Filed under: Bain Capital • Mitt Romney
soundoff (45 Responses)
  1. lyn

    This Moron want to be President, America wake up, you know what he will do to us poor people if he is President he will treat you worst than the way he treated his poor dog. Romney you are a liars when will you come clean with the American people. " Obama / Biden 2012"

    July 12, 2012 10:17 pm at 10:17 pm |
  2. Pete

    What does Romney think is going on,its been like this for the president since his inaugeration this caustic behavior from these treasonistic,obstructionistic republicans,nothing new here...Now he knows what to expect if he gets close to the WH,its a sure bet he'll get a "WARM" Democratic reception if he even sneezes...So republican hypocrites beware,he'll get the same,what goes around comes around ,got it and don't play innocent with intelligent people as Democrates,indepentants,they don't like people toying with our politics...This Bain deal,overseas accounts are soon to blow wide open and your candidate is going down like a burning meteor,all bright at the beginning but fades real fast...

    July 12, 2012 10:23 pm at 10:23 pm |
  3. Name. Richard

    Well, even if he left 2 years before "for the Olympics", if you run with dogs, you still have fleas!

    July 12, 2012 10:29 pm at 10:29 pm |
  4. Jen

    it's not an act of despration, it's called the truth. Mr. Romney shipped jobs overseas, plain and simple. If the american people think this man is for the middle class, then they are going to have bush back in office.

    July 12, 2012 10:31 pm at 10:31 pm |
  5. ronb

    How ironic that the day you release an ad calling the president a liar, news breaks of your lies to the securities and exchange commission AND the American people. LOL. A lawyer's dream: were you lying then or are you lying now Willard?! I'm done with this....."witness".

    July 12, 2012 10:38 pm at 10:38 pm |
  6. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide

    I guess the real question here is: Can someone who legally owns a company call himself not involved in its activities? Romney is trying to say that although he was the owner of Bain Capital for possibly another 3 years after he "left" in 1999, that he had nothing to do with any of the decisions made there, and therefore it is not a lie to say that he had nothing to do with outsourcing done by Bain.

    It sounds like what we got here is another "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" or Mr. Hide, if you like.

    Haven't you heard: Corporations are people, my friend! So since Romney is the 100% owner and only human person that had legal control of Dr. Jekyll, I mean Bain, until probably at least 2002, and Bain was the person that was 100% legally owned by Dr. Hyde, I mean Dr. Hide, I mean Romney, I do not think it is a stretch of the imagination to think that Romney and Bain are people that pioneered outsourcing.

    Now I can understand Mr. Hide's insistence that this is all Dr. Jekyll's doing and nothing he was remotely involved in, but the inconvenient truth is that Dr. Hide has his signature and fingerprints all over this thing.

    July 12, 2012 11:06 pm at 11:06 pm |
  7. enuff

    In other words, they do not have a concrete rebuttal. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...

    July 12, 2012 11:32 pm at 11:32 pm |
  8. Just a thought

    It is very difficult to follow the knuckle draggers explanation for supporting Robmeny. These people have THE MOST VAPID ARGUMENTS. And its not surprising that the red states are those most like to support this idiocy. And red neck and his / her stupidity is difficult if not impossible to separate.

    July 12, 2012 11:59 pm at 11:59 pm |
  9. MikeH

    I'ts my guess that when one is caught in a lie as substatial as the lie Willard Romney has been caught telling about his involvement in Bain (possible felony) someone like Willard is going to tell a whole lot more lies, each more incredulous than the one before it. Willard's curtain of deceit will be pulled down so that all can see the lying venal criminally-minded slime ball Willard Romney really is.

    July 13, 2012 01:04 am at 1:04 am |
  10. Deb in MT

    Oh good grief, Willard: Did you lie to the SEC in 1999 when you said you were no longer active at Bain Capital, or not? Did you then sign statements to the SEC that you were the sole stockholder, CEO and president of Bain in 2002, or not? Were you flown back to Bain for board meetings after you 'left the company', or not?

    Did you use part-time employment at Bain –with a six figure remuneration–to help establish a residency in MA so you could run for Governor of that state (despite claiming to the IRS that your megamillion dollar residence in Utah was your PRIMARY residence so you could deduct the taxes) after you supposedly left the company, or not?

    Did you lie to MA, to the American people, to the SEC, or to the IRS? All of the above? Past time to come clean, bucko.

    (Oh, and if you lied to the SEC/IRS: that's a felony. Just FYI.)

    July 13, 2012 01:10 am at 1:10 am |
  11. ThinkAgain

    "Beyond the pale"? Here's what's beyond the pale: Serving up to the American the same economic, military and foreign policies that are PROVEN FAILURES. You guys are hoping that your fear-mongering and wedge issues will make people forget your party's policies took our country down the toilet and convince your base to once again vote against their own self-interest.

    BTW, if "corporations are people, my friend," what gender is Bain Capital?

    July 13, 2012 01:23 am at 1:23 am |
  12. Name USMC jarhead

    Liar liar pants on fire hey Mitt

    July 13, 2012 01:52 am at 1:52 am |
  13. 1andRun

    If Romney was busy running Bain under the table, how come he worked 80 hour weeks? How come he was so busy keeping america from international disgrace that he missed his 30th aninversery? Obama2012-The untrustworthy way forward!

    July 13, 2012 02:02 am at 2:02 am |
  14. s

    Cry me a river, what goes around comes around, Romney can't take the heat, he did the same crying in MASS.

    July 13, 2012 03:43 am at 3:43 am |
  15. J.V.Hodgson

    The responses are huff and puff and bluff. SEC filings are not a minor matter. Being officially recognised as CEO and managing Director carries legal responsibilities, whether you are there or not.
    He was paid a salary, and are these guys telling me he never attended a partnership or board meeting fom 1999-2002, that as CEO and Managing director he did not sign Finacial records submitted to various orgnisations as required by law for a CEO MD!!??
    You are then going to tell me he signed without any work by him, because he trusted his colleagues... sorry just like a President of the USA ( CEO/MD Bain) we y'all know where the " buck stops"!!
    Get some facts and real reporting before signing up to the fairy tale that he worked 6 days a week 12hours a day on the Olympic fix. That's an insult to our intelligence and Mr Romney's.
    If there is no outsourcing or whatever i.e bankruptcies in 1999 to 2002, there is nothing to deny. The strenuos efforts to deny he had no or any influence however small is pathetic and importantly unbelievable.
    bain capital and consulting are huge on the matter of transition mangement . so they would be also in thier own organisation.
    Regards,
    Hodgson.

    July 13, 2012 03:45 am at 3:45 am |
  16. Namejkane fl SEND THE THREE TIME LOSER romney HOME AND MAKE IT FOUR.

    Romney might be in jail by Nov ,but he has plenty of bail money !!!

    July 13, 2012 06:18 am at 6:18 am |
  17. Scott

    every investigation out there,SEC,FBI,fact check, even Democrats all say that Romney left in 1999. Yet the Obama campaign is so patheic and so desperate, that they are willing to say anything after reading articles from that Liberal Rag the Boston Globe, which is on the same level as the National Enquire. Obama needs to stop the lies, and apologize to Romney for his staff that is out of control. In fact Romney is he so chooses has a good libel lawsuit here. To think that Obama is the person we elected to run this country, we all ought to be ashamed of ourselves.

    July 13, 2012 07:09 am at 7:09 am |
  18. Anders Perillo

    "Either they don't understand what they are talking about or they are completely reckless"

    obviously, it's both!

    July 13, 2012 07:55 am at 7:55 am |
  19. edpeters101

    Where are the tax returns? Mitt either lied to the SEC (a felony?) or is lying to the American public (I'll bet on this one)!

    July 13, 2012 09:36 am at 9:36 am |
  20. enuff

    How does someone, who made is bread and butter from a company with his name all over it, "abruptly" just leave it for something else? I don't believe he just said "see ya" and took off for Salt Lake without a backward glance.

    July 13, 2012 09:41 am at 9:41 am |
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