Or, it depends on your definition of the word retire.

To wit, consider Bain Capital’s 1993 $24 million investment in GST Steel, a Kansas City, Missouri steel company. During his 2002 campaign for governor, Romney’s opponent pointed out that Bain Capital had profited to the tune of $50 million – after laying off 750 workers at GST.

And Romney replied that he was no longer at Bain Capital when the layoffs happened. But the SEC filings indicate that Romney was Bain Capital’s CEO in February 2001 when GST declared bankruptcy. And Romney made the same “not there then” claim when the Obama campaign raised this example in May 2012.

If the SEC filings are accurate, that means Romney was again in a grey area when he made the claims about GST. After all, if he was CEO and sole owner of Bain Capital in 2002, he would have had a responsibility to his investors to make key decisions about its investments — like whether GST should file for bankruptcy and fire its staff.

On July 11, Bain Capital issued a statement: “Mitt Romney retired from Bain Capital in February 1999. He has had no involvement in the management or investment activities of Bain Capital, or with any of its portfolio companies, since that time.”

To paraphrase Clinton, it depends upon what the meaning of the word retired is.

If Romney was still a sole stockholder in the firm, his retiring from the company wouldn’t absolve him from all company decisions since he could control company direction as the stockholder (choosing management - trustees/directors, etc.). He might have left day-to-day management up to the directors/trustees, but as a sole shareholder, he’d still have say (and sway).

But we get to that only after trying to figure out whether he was or wasn’t managing director at Bain past the 1999 date he claims to have gone to work on the Olympics. SEC filings, see 5/2000 and 2/2001 indicate that Romney was still with Bain in a management capacity.

That doesn’t tell you the whole picture - whether he was still engaging in day to day management activities at Bain or working 100% for the SLC Olympics, but he’s still a responsible person - especially in the government’s eyes (or potential lawsuits against the firm) pursuant to the filings.

I believe that those filings are accurate and that no criminality was intended with those filings. He was indeed still the managing director at Bain. He was ultimately responsible for acts undertaken by Bain during that period, even if he was off working on the Olympics. What would absolve him of that is the production of evidence showing that he delegated those decisions to others at the firm (that would be office communications or other SEC filings) indicating that Romney wouldn’t be doing day to day work for Bain after date X.