He said in Federal financial disclosure forms in early 1999 that he had no operational control over Bain. To lie on them is to commit a felony. But if you look back at what Romney declared under oath, it's strange: He limits his involvement in Bain in the way that he's consistently said, but doesn't rule out other kinds of involvement. (Consistent with being listed on Bain SEC filings for a while for some legal reasons, but consistent with his claims for the last 13 years.)
Income's not at issue. I presume he'd have paid the same on investment or "earned" income from Bain, since they'd have been taxed at the same rate and reported to the IRS (if not the latter, than Bain's also on the hook for some serious fines).
The SEC filings, as far as I can tell, also aren't a perjury issue, per se, for Romney. Signed by Nunnelly, if they're false then Nunnelly committed perjury.
What's left is trying to connect the listing of Romney as CEO and managing director to his disclosure form from 1999. He could defend himself by making clear exactly what legal nicety led his name to continue to be listed as CEO if he had no operational involvement in the company; attackers are left with nothing but innuendo, unless they can show that being listed as CEO necessitates his operational involvement. Romney's not said; attackers have dealt with fuzzy generalizations. (Having seen a "CEO" in the position of having no operational involvement in the "company" yet listed on legal forms in that position, I know the fuzzy generalizations don't provide a valid argument. Just a suggestive one.)Bain, while keeping some sort of interest (a continued return on my original
A thought: If he was not operationally involved, and was the only person who could replace himself as CEO, wouldn't replacing himself with somebody else be operational involvement? What would I do in that situation, I wonder. Probably let things slide--the managing directors had authority, I'd guess, to handle pretty much everything, if not a limited power of attorney ceding authority would do the trick. Then I'd try to find a way to sell my investment in investment, perhaps). That might require waiting until my active investments were all liquidated, but would certainly mean I'd wait until somebody came along to buy me out on favorable terms. That might take a week. It might take a decade. And I might not try all that hard.
Details.
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