While the Romney campaign has insisted that the Boston Globe’s exposé on Bain Capital is “not accurate,” they have yet to dispute any of the factual content in the story, Globe reporter Callum Borchers said on Thursday’s PoliticsNation.
“They’re sticking to their party line, which they’ve gone with all along, Al,” he told host Al Sharpton. “So far, though, they haven’t disputed any of the factual information in our article—I think that’s important to note.”
The Globe article reported that, though Romney claims to have left Bain Capital in 1999 to manage the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, SEC filings indicate that he stayed on as the company’s owner, chairman, CEO and president for three more years.
Andrea Saul, a spokesperson for the Romney campaign, said: “This article is not accurate. As Bain Capital has said, Governor Romney left Bain in February of 1999 to run the Olympics, and had no input on investments or management of companies after that point.”
But Borchers said that nothing in that statement challenged the facts as outlined in his article. “The documents say what they say,” he told Sharpton, “and the Romney campaign isn’t disputing that. Essentially what they’re disputing is the conclusions drawn by some folks in our article, which suggest that, you know, it’s hard to believe for many folks that Romney held these titles—as you noted, continued to draw a paycheck as an executive—remained the sole owner of Bain Capital, and planned to return after running the Olympics. And yet he says he played no role in their investment decisions over that period.” Romney communications director Gail Gitcho asked the Boston Globe to publish a retraction. The Globe declined, replying, “Having carefully reviewed that request, we see no basis for publishing a correction. The Globe story was entirely accurate.”
Ned Resnikoff is an urban policy analyst, researcher, writer, and editor. His byline has appeared in a variety of publications, including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Dissent, and The Nation. He writes the newsletter Public Comment, which can be found at publiccomment.blog. Recommended
