Mitt Romney again insisted to CBS Friday that he had no direct management of Bain Capital after February 1999. CBS’s Jan Crawford asked him about SEC documents that show him as the CEO of the company after that time:
Crawford: You say it’s ridiculous. But why is this there there this discrepancy? You said you left bain in 1999 yet Bain is listing you as C.E.O. Until 2002. Why were you listed as C.E.O. Until 2002?
Romney: The documents show that there’s a difference between ownership– which is that I owned shares in Bain but did not manage Bain. I left as everyone knows to run the Olympics in February of 1999. I was full time running the Olympics. I had no role whatsoever in the management of Bain after I went to the Olympics and that’s been demonstrated by people who work at Bain, by all of the documents but I still retained an ownership interest.
Crawford: Even if you weren’t making daily managerial decisions, though, doesn’t the buck stop with you?
Romney: Actually, when you leave an enterprise and you have other people who are managing the enterprise, who take responsibility for the investment decisions, who decide who’s going to get hired and fired, who decide compensation decisions, they’re the managers, they’re the people running the business.
