Romney Was Involved in ‘Raping’ Companies at Bain, Top House Dem Says
House Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn (S.C.) on Tuesday escalated the debate over Mitt Romney’s private equity background, arguing in an interview on MSNBC that the presumptive GOP nominee had been involved in “raping companies” during his tenure at Bain Capital.
“This is not an attack on free enterprise,” Clyburn, the No. 3 House Democrat, said of the Obama campaign’s criticism of some aspects of Romney’s Bain record. “I don’t take contributions from payday lenders. … I refuse to do that, and that’s free enterprise. But there’s something about that enterprise that I have a problem with. And there’s something about raping companies and leaving them in debt and setting up Swiss bank accounts and corporate businesses in the Grand Caymans — I have a real serious problem with that.”
Clyburn’s statement had echoes of the Obama camp’s TV ad slamming Romney for previously having a Swiss bank account. It also is in step with Obama’s Monday night defense of his campaign’s Bain attacks; the president argued at a Chicago news conference that some in private equity “do good work” in that area but that “their priority is to maximize profits, and that’s not always going to be good for communities or businesses or workers.”
Later Tuesday afternoon, the Obama camp rejected Clyburn’s remarks.