WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama's re-election team went on the attack Thursday against Mitt Romney, accusing the Republican White House hopeful of lying about how long he remained head of Bain Capital.
The Obama campaign seized on Thursday's Boston Globe report quoting government documents that showed Romney remained in control of the private equity firm for three years beyond the 1999 date he said he stepped down in order to manage the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
The Globe said that despite Romney's announced departure from Bain, public Securities and Exchange Commission documents filed by Bain Capital state he remained the company's "sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president."
It said that financial disclosure forms from 2003 showed Romney still owned 100 percent of Bain Capital in 2002, and was earning a corporate salary of at least $100,000 in 2001 and 2002, in addition to investment earnings.
Bain is the primary source of Romney's vast wealth, estimated at about $250 million. The ex-businessman's finances are at the core of some critics' concerns about Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts who squares off against Obama in the November election.
The timing of his departure from Bain is key, as Romney has insisted he was not responsible for Bain-owned companies that went bankrupt or laid of workers after he left.
"When Mitt Romney ran for governor and now as he's running for president, he consistently claimed he could not be blamed for bankruptcies and layoffs from Bain investments after February 1999 because he departed for the Olympics," Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter said in a statement.
"Now, we know that he wasn't telling the truth."
Cutter said the developments link him to "troubling investments involving outsourcing and bankruptcies," and raise questions about why he misrepresented his departure date and "whether he is concealing his tax returns because there is still more about this period and beyond that he doesn't want people to know."
Romney has released only his 2010 tax returns and an estimate for 2011, and the Obama team and other Democrats have heaped pressure on the Republican challenger to release more tax data.
Critics have called out Romney for the Swiss bank account he once held, and for investments he has in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.
"It's time for Mitt Romney to come clean so that the American people can make their own judgments about his record and his motivations," Cutter said.
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