8 hours ago: Romney's Account of His Departure From Bain Undercut by...Romney Testimony

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http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/romney-bain-testimony-transition

In a previously unreported remark, Romney indicated he went through a "transition" at Bain after heading to Utah in February 1999.

—By David Corn
| Mon Jul. 16, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

Mitt Romney, his campaign, and Bain Capital, the private equity firm he founded, keep insisting that Romney departed the company in February 1999 and had nothing to do with its operations and deals once he headed to Salt Lake City to take over the troubled Winter Olympics. Romney even signed a federal financial disclosure form, under the penalty of perjury, declaring that he had not been involved "in any way" with Bain after he left for Utah. Yet evidence has emerged that undermines this claim and that suggests Romney may have made a false statement on this disclosure form (which would be a potential felony punishable by a $50,000 fine and up to a year in jail). Now there's another indication that Romney's break with Bain wasn't so clean—and this is according to Romney himself.

Last week, the Huffington Post reported that Romney, in sworn testimony during a 2002 Massachusetts hearing to determine if he met the residency requirement to run for governor, declared that he had remained on the board of a company in which Bain was an investor. This scoop received much attention. Still, the Romney camp did not directly respond to it, and in interviews with the major television networks on Friday, Romney insisted, as he told ABC News' Jonathan Karl, that he had "no role with regards to Bain Capital after February 1999." He maintained that all the questions regarding his stint at Bain were merely part of the Obama campaign's "kill Romney" strategy.

Yet during that 2002 hearing—in a remark that has not been previously reported—Romney said that after he departed Bain in February 1999 he went through a transition period regarding his work in Boston.

When a lawyer challenging his eligibility asked Romney, "Did you remain more or less continuously in Salt Lake City from February '99 to the end of the year," Romney answered:

Actually, there was some transition away from my work in Boston for the first few months and then I pretty much stayed there after.