HAMPTON, Va. - President Barack Obama said Friday that Republican rival Mitt Romney "is going to have to answer those questions" about when he gave up control of the private equity firm Bain Capital.
Campaigning in Virginia, Obama told a local television station in an interview that if Romney "aspires to being president, one of the things you learn is you're ultimately responsible for the conduct of your operations."
Obama has accused Romney of being an "outsourcing pioneer" who invested in companies that shipped jobs to China and India.
Romney says he had no role in outsourcing U.S. jobs. He says much of that activity didn't happen until after 1999, when he says he had given up operational control at Bain.
But documents filed with the federal government by Bain Capital conflict with Romney's statements about when he gave up control of the Boston-based firm.
The filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission place Romney in charge of Bain Capital from 1999 to 2001, the period in which it outsourced jobs and ran companies that fell into bankruptcy.
Romney and his aides say he left Bain in 1999 to run the Salt Lake City Olympics.
Separately, Bain Capital issued a statement saying that Romney "remained the sole stockholder for a time while formal ownership was being documented and transferred to the group of partners who took over management of the firm in 1999."
Obama said in the interview with WJLA-TV that Romney "attested to the SEC multiple times" that he led Bain.
Romney interrupted his day off the campaign trail Friday to give interviews to five major network and cable TV news outlets for their evening broadcasts, presumably to answer questions about his tenure at the private equity firm.
---
Monday
July 7th, 2025
11:27AM
