As we reported last month, the Washington Post and the Obama campaign teamed up to attack Mitt Romney with lies about his record as an outsourcer. Thanks mainly to New Media’s reporting of the facts, this attack was exposed as the lie it is. Yesterday, the RNC fired a major shot across Obama’s bow with the revelation that Obama’s failed stimulus used our tax dollars to create jobs overseas — something even the Washington Post grudgingly admitted was “likely.”
On top of that, this morning the Romney campaign launched a blistering ad that brings all these facts together and accuses President Obama of lying — but only because he is lying.
With these outsourcing attacks not only blowing up in Obama’s face but also backfiring, it should come as no surprise that the notoriously left-wing Boston Globe chose today of all days to blow up old news as A Big Scoop in order to pull Obama’s feet out of the fire and to portray Romney as a liar:
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.
Romney has said he left Bain in 1999 to lead the winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, ending his role in the company. But public Securities and Exchange Commission documents filed later by Bain Capital state he remained the firm’s “sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president.”
Also, a Massachusetts financial disclosure form Romney filed in 2003 states that he still owned 100 percent of Bain Capital in 2002. And Romney’s state financial disclosure forms indicate he earned at least $100,000 as a Bain “executive” in 2001 and 2002, separate from investment earnings.
The timing of Romney’s departure from Bain is a key point of contention because he has said his resignation in February 1999 meant he was not responsible for Bain Capital companies that went bankrupt or laid off workers after that date.
Well, I’m sorry Boston Globe and the entire left-wing media cabal currently attempting to blow old news up into some kind of “game-changer,” but there’s nothing to see here.
From the Washington Post BACK IN MAY:
We discovered that Romney’s name appeared on Bain SEC filings between 1999 and 2002. But a 2002 statement the former executive filed with the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission said he was a “passive, limited partner [with] no management capacity” in the Bain entities in which he held ownership.
We also learned that the creditors who sued some of Bain’s companies and executives over dividend payments around the time in question did not name Romney in their lawsuit. Plaintiffs generally try to list as many people as possible as defendants to encourage settlement, so it’s highly unlikely that Romney had any involvement with Bain’s businesses during this period.
These facts essentially exonerate Romney from allegations that he was responsible for any outsourcing, bad deals and layoffs that occurred with Bain’s companies in the early 2000s. (Note: it may make a difference if the initial investment took place while Romney was actively running Bain Capital, but that is not the case here.) So that leaves just one possible example of outsourcing out of scores of investments made by Bain under Romney’s leadership.
The only thing new about what the Boston Globe reported today is that we now know the media is so desperate to save Obama that it will resurrect old news as Major Gotcha Scoops and is doing so in obvious coordination with the Obama campaign. Within hours of the Globe’s story hitting, Team Obama had already scheduled a conference call with reporters.
Believe me, this is no accident.
Even Politico’s Maggie Haberman made the mistake of admitting in a tweet that the Globe’s story is a recycled one and in retaliation for Romney pushing back against the media’s lies:
–
–
This is media retaliation, nothing more.
Romney left Bain Capital in February of 1999 to run the Olympics in Salt Lake City. This was like a leave of absence and anyone at all familiar with a leave of absence understands that during a leave you do not give up your title or status, even though you’re not in any way involved with the company.
As Breitbart news Editor-In-Chief pointed out earlier today, not only is the Globe’s big gotcha old news, it’s also a charge against Romney that was fully litigated and settled back in 2002.
Moreover, are we really supposed to believe that simply to protect himself from outsourcing charges, Romney would commit a felony that would completely destroy his campaign? Well, the execrable Politico is floating that idea, but both Bain and Romney have been clear on this issue going back to 2002 and, according to FactCheck.Org, would be guilty of a felony if they are indeed lying.
Here’s more sleight-of-hand coming from the Boston Globe, in what sounds like the most damning part of its report:
You can’t say statements filed with the SEC are meaningless. This is a fact in an SEC filing,” said Roberta S. Karmel, now a professor at Brooklyn Law School.
“It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to say he was technically in charge on paper but he had nothing to do with Bain’s operations,” Karmel continued. “Was he getting paid? He’s the sole stockholder. Are you telling me he owned the company but had no say in its investments?” …
Karmel, the former SEC commissioner, said the contradictory statements could have legal implications in some instances.
“If someone invested with Bain Capital because they believed Mitt Romney was a great fund manager, and it turns out he wasn’t really doing anything, that could be considered a misrepresentation to the investor,” she said. “It’s a theory that could be used in a lawsuit against him.”
What the Globe doesn’t tell its readers is that Karmel is a Democrat and a Carter appointee.
Also, the Globe glosses over this tiny nugget:
Romney did not finalize a severance agreement with Bain until 2002, a 10-year deal with undisclosed terms that was retroactive to 1999. It expired in 2009.
So back in 2002 Romney finalized a 10-year severance agreement that expired in 2009 — which would mean Romney wasn’t active with the company going back to — wait for it, wait for it — 1999!
What we’re once again seeing here is how the Obama campaign and the corrupt media manipulate The Narrative. When your guy is losing and you don’t have facts to fight back with, you take old news, old nothingburgers, and re-spin them into something sinister.
Naturally, the rest of the corrupt media jumps on board to aid and abet and, voila!, you have a narrative.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC