ON STATE OF THE UNION:
When did Mitt Romney leave Bain Capital and why does it matter? Candy spoke to Romney Senior Campaign Adviser Ed Gillespie and Obama Senior Campaign Adviser David Axelrod about the controversy.
Gillespie told Candy that the whole issue is just a distraction from the real issues in the campaign and that “Governor Romney took a leave of absence from his company to go save the Olympics… he ended up not going back at all and retired retroactively to February of 1999 as a result.”
Axelrod defended the campaign’s attack on Romney’s Bain tenure and tax returns, but said "I'm not suggesting that based on what we know that he's done anything illegal. I'm not suggesting that, but what I am suggesting is that he's taken advantage of every single conceivable tax shelter and loophole that we can see.”
FULL POST
(CNN) – Mitt Romney senior adviser Ed Gillespie said Sunday on CNN’s "State of the Union" the GOP candidate “retroactively” retired from Bain Capital after the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics began.
"You know, there may have been thought at the time that he could be part time," Gillespie told CNN Chief Political Correspondent Candy Crowley. "It was not part time. The Olympics was in a shambles. There was corruption. There was – the International Olympic Committee was going to pull the Olympics from the United States of America which would have been a huge embarrassment. Because of Mitt Romney's leadership skills he was called on to do it."
Gillespie continued, "He took a leave of absence and, in fact, Candy, he ended up not going back at all and retired retroactively to February of 1999 as a result."
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Ed Gillespie, senior adviser to Mitt Romney, defended Romney's record at Bain Capital and said the former governor left the firm in 1999.