Mitt Romney

Government documents filed by Mitt Romney and Bain Capital say Romney remained chief executive and chairman of the firm three years beyond the date he said he ceded control, even creating five new investment partnerships during that time.

Romney has said he left Bain in 1999 to lead the winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, ending his role in the company. But public Securities and Exchange Commission documents filed later by Bain Capital state he remained the firm’s “sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president.”

Also, a Massachusetts financial disclosure form Romney filed in 2003 states that he still owned 100 percent of Bain Capital in 2002. And Romney’s state financial disclosure forms indicate he earned at least $100,000 as a Bain “executive” in 2001 and 2002, separate from investment earnings.

The timing of Romney’s departure from Bain is a key point of contention because he has said his resignation in February 1999 meant he was not responsible for Bain Capital companies that went bankrupt or laid off workers after that date.

-- Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate, was originally going to be at a public event near the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001, but a late change to his plans meant the event was rescheduled and he was out of harm's way when the 9/11 attacks occurred. Romney is therefore one of a number of prominent individuals known to have avoided danger--and possible death--due to a change to, or a deviation from, their plans for September 11.

Romney was, at that time, the president of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC) for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. He went to Washington, DC, on September 10 to talk to members of Congress about security at the Winter Olympics. The final $12.7 million of federal money needed to cover security for the games had mistakenly been omitted from Congress's budget, and although the Olympics organizers were "confident" the error could be corrected, Romney went to Washington to make sure the money didn't "slip away," according to the Deseret News. As well as meeting with members of Congress on September 10, Romney also met with FBI Director Robert Mueller that day.

Mitt Romney's original plan for the morning of September 11 was to attend what Romney called "an elaborate press conference" in Battery Park, just a few blocks south of the World Trade Center, at which the names of the torchbearers selected to carry the Olympic flame across the United States to Salt Lake City would be announced. Those who would have attended, along with Romney, included other SLOC officials, representatives of the Olympic torch relay sponsors, and a number of torchbearers from the New York area. The event was set to take place at 9:00 a.m., around the time that planes crashed into the Twin Towers.

The original date for the press conference had been set by the SLOC's "public relations people," according to Romney. But a couple of weeks before September 11, the event was rescheduled to take place on September 12 instead of September 11. The reason for this, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, was that "Romney had extended a series of meetings in Washington with U.S. Congressional leaders." Cindy Gillespie, the vice president of federal relations for the SLOC, had arranged a meeting with House and Senate appropriators at 10:00 a.m. on September 11. Romney has written that on the morning of September 11, therefore, he was with Gillespie in her office in Washington, helping to put the finishing touches on their presentation.