Mitt Romney campaign under seige as he faces fresh questions over role at Bain Capital

Mr Romney hit back on Friday night, carrying out several television
interviews.

“I was the owner of the entity that was filing this information, but I had no
role whatsoever in the management of Bain Capital after 1999. I left in
February of 1999,” he told CNN. “There’s nothing wrong with being associated
with Bain Capital, of course.”

Mr Romney slammed the Obama campaign for suggesting he might have committed a
“felony” by signing his official documents saying he was nominal head of
Bain Capital after 1999, and accused the President of running personal smear
campaign instead of engaging in a serious debate about the future of America.

“It’s ridiculous and disturbing to come from their campaign and beneath the
dignity of the president and his campaign,” he told ABC news, “The president
needs to take control of these people.”

Mr Romney then categorically denied the insinuation that he was in any way
actively involved in running Bain Capital or its investments after he left
to run the Salt Lake City winter Olympics in 1999.

“I left Bain Capital in February of 1999, I went out to run the Olympics and
said good-bye to my colleagues. They took over the business. They organized
new funds for instance and pointed out that who managers were. They don’t
list me as a manager,” he said.

The Romney campaign has accused Mr Obama of being a “liar” and
called on him to ask “out of control staff” to apologise, but the
President has refused, responding yesterday by saying it was justified to
question whether Mr Romney was the CEO “Mr Fix-it” he claimed to
be.

“If you’re a head of a large private equity firm or hedge fund, your job
is to make money. It’s not to create jobs. It’s not even to create a
successful business. It’s to make sure that you’re maximizing returns for
your investor,” Mr Obama told CBS News.

“That’s part of the system. But that doesn’t necessarily make you
qualified to think about the economy as a whole, because as president, my
job is to think about the workers. My job is to think about communities,
where jobs have been outsourced.” Bill Clinton was also used to keep
the focus on Mr Romney’s personal wealth and use of tax havens, telling
NBC’s Today yesterday morning that it “struck me as a little odd”
that Mr Romney had only issued one year of tax returns.

“That’s kind of perplexed me, because this is the first time in, I don’t
know, more than 30 years that anybody running for president has only done
that,” the former President said, in comment that were rapidly
distributed by the Obama campaign.

Republicans were yesterday showing growing signs of alarm that Mr Romney’s
campaign message was being drowned out by the furore over the candidate’s
tax returns and his legal, but politically damaging, use of Swiss bank
accounts and off-shore tax havens.

Two Republican congressman urged Mr Romney to clear the air, as a chorus of
Republican strategists warned that the Romney campaign was in danger of
being blown of course over Bain and taxes, just as his first political
campaign was in 1994 in a Massachusetts senate raced against Ted Kennedy.

“His personal finances, the way he does things, his record, are fair game,”
said Pete Sessions, a Republican congressman from Texas who is chair of the
National Republican Congressional Committee.

Walter Jones, a Republican congressman for North Carolina was even more
direct. “I think he should release his financial records and I think if
he does it in July it would be a lot better than in October,” he told
CNN, “Whenever you are asking for the vote of the American people that
you need to fully disclose what your holdings are, if you have any.”
However other Republican analysts urged Mr Romney to stand firm. Jeffrey
Lord, a former Reagan White House aide said Mr Romney should “sit tight”
and not be bounced into disclosing his tax returns by the Obama campaign
machine.

“Obama can’t run on his record, so he’s using the tried and tested tactic
of turning the guns on the other guy, it’s the only choice he has and I
believe people will see through it. People want jobs, they aren’t bothered
about when Mr Romney left Bain,” he said.

In another apparent attempt to shift the conversation away from Bain and
taxes, the hugely influential Drudge Report website, whose founder Matt
Drudge is close to the Romney inner circle, published a story that
Condoleeza Rice might stand as Mr Romney’s vice-president.

Ms Rice was key speaker at a Romney fundraising event Utah last month but has
said there is “no way” she would stand, leading many commentators
to dismiss the report an “distraction play”.

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