Thursday, July 12, 2012

takes one to know one

mitt romney's new advertisement calls president obama a liar for claiming that romney caused jobs to be outsourced to other countries when he ran bain capital. the ad relies upon and cites factcheck.org's review of the obama claims. that review concluded that "we found no evidence to support the claim that Romney — while he was still running Bain Capital — shipped American jobs overseas."

 but here's the problem, factcheck.org's analysis centers on the "while he was still running Bain Capital" part. the organization found numerous instances of bain being involved in shipping jobs overseas, but they all took place after 1999, when romney claimed he left the company to run the salt lake city olympics.

but the boston globe reports that according to SEC filings, mitt romney reported that he was chief executive and was in charge of bain for the period between 1999 and 2002, and that he drew a six-figure salary from the company during those years. those three additional years happen to cover the period the the outsourcing instances took place. which means that factcheck.org's analysis was based on a false premise and was wrong.

of course, it's also possible that the reports that romney submitted to the SEC were incorrect and that, consistent with his current claims, mittens wasn't really working for bain after 1999. but that would mean that he submitted false reports to the SEC which is a felony.

so either romney is lying now when he said he left bain in 1999 or he lied in 2000, 2001 and 2002 when he reported to the SEC that he was running the company. either way he is lying, possibly in the very advertisement where he calls obama a liar.

(via memeorandum)

UPDATE: john aravosis comes to the same conclusion about felonious mitt.
UPDATE 2: politico notices the felony angle. and the obama campaign too.