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Crooks & Liars and CNN: Romney's assets are NOT in a blind trust after all.
http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/mitt-romneys-ethics-problem-blind-trust-ediWell, this is interesting news. It seems that Mittens hasn't really got his investments in a blind trust. What he has is about $250 million in trust accounts which are managed by his personal lawyer, and which continue to receive payments from Bain Capital which are classified as "carried interest."
SNIP
A blind trust is not a blind trust when there is direct or indirect control over investment decisions. While Romney has nominally placed his investments in a trust which is managed by someone else, the person he has chosen to manage those investments is his close associate and personal attorney. That is not a blind trust under federal law. It is a trust managed by a close personal friend and advisor.
SNIP
Under federal law, Mitt Romney has two options with regard to his assets. He can either create a blind trust which actually creates a firewall between Romney and his money by putting all of his assets under the management of a completely unrelated third party with no conflict of interest or relationship with Romney, or he can liquidate all of his investments and place them in neutral investments such as Treasury notes.
SNIP
So here's what we're being asked to believe. First, Romney's relationship with Bain ended in 1999 and there was no arrangement for any further consulting or other services with them. Second, Romney's retirement agreement expired in 2009 and with it, all preferred tax treatment on Bain Capital distributions, since Romney would ostensibly have provided no services to Bain to justify giving him a "piece of carry", which is how it's referred to. Third, suddenly two investments pop up out of nowhere with Bain which do not cause any prior year's tax returns to be amended or disclosures changed, but payments from them represent some sort of adjustment for prior services which are as yet undisclosed.
Isn't the simpler explanation that Romney still has an active, vibrant ongoing relationship with Bain Capital, and that his current investments are not being held in a trust with any sort of firewall standing between Romney and investment decisions for those trusts? And if that is the explanation, then we also have to understand that Mitt Romney has many, many conflicts of interest, that he should be accountable for Bain Capital's vulture capitalism activities, and most importantly, Mitt Romney wouldn't know the truth if it stood in front of him with a big sign painted on its chest.
http://economy.money.cnn.com/2012/07/10/romney-on-investments-nothing-hidden-there/
A not-so-blind trust
When asked about his finances, Romney often claims a certain level of ignorance about his holdings, saying that since 2003, his assets have been held in a "blind trust."
Public officials often place their assets in a trust in order to avoid conflicts of interest. And indeed, Romney created his blind trust before becoming the governor of Massachusetts.
But now, for a few different reasons, the trust is hardly blind.
For example, the trustee who manages the portfolio, Bradford Malt, is a friend of the candidate. A close personal relationship with the trustee, according to federal ethics rules, is most definitely out-of-bounds.
And the contents of the blind trust have been released via federal disclosure forms, which have been the subject of extensive media reports.
Romney has already pledged to dissolve his current blind trust if elected president. He will create a new one that complies with Office of Government Ethics rules, his campaign has said.
42 replies
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I am quite certain he is guilty of numerous SEC and Internal Revenue Code violations, plus who knows what else. However, he will never reveal his finances for just that reason, so he will get the benefit of the doubt from the MSM. But Ron Paul will be sure to make hay of this at the convention, which promises to be deliciously contentious. 
Sorry, couldn't resist. 
As someone here said yesterday: An unMITTigated liat!