Romney's Bain timeline doesn't add up

Maybe this should be Mitt Romney's new campaign logo It turns out that the implications of David Corn's explosive scoop about how Mitt Romney misrepresented his role in Bain's investment in a medical-waste firm that disposed of aborted fetuses goes far beyond that specific investment. The short version of that story is that while Romney claimed publicly to have had no role in the investment because it took place after he started working on the Salt Lake Olympics, he actually had an active role in the investment, according to legal documents obtained by Corn.

Where there's smoke there's fire, and as Salon's Alex Seitz-Wald points out, if Romney lied about that investment, then he also appears to have lied in his official financial disclosure forms filed with the government.

Twice, first in 2007 during his earlier presidential bid and again this year, Romney filed personal disclosure forms with the Office of Government Ethics which explicitly state that Romney left Bain in early 1999. 'Mr. Romney retired from Bain Capital on February 11, 1999 to head the Salt Lake Organizing Committee. Since February 11, 1999, Mr. Romney has not had any active role with any Bain Capital entity and has not been involved in the operations of any Bain Capital entity in any way,' his ethics filings from June state.

But as Corn's report details, that timeline doesn't add up. Romney personally signed documents after February of 1999 related to the human-waste disposal deal and SEC documents also indicate he was a key investor in the deal. Moreover, according to contemporaneous public reports from Bain and the Boston Herald, Romney did not sever all ties or management responsibilities when he assumed his job running the winter Olympics.

Bottom line: Romney's story doesn't compute, and given that the credibility of all the defenses he makes to Bain criticism depend on whether or not you take his word, he's got a real problem developing'if the media is paying attention.