Tornado Alley (PROG)

[F6]

Stephanie -- and the trustee of his 'blind' trusts is "his personal lawyer and longtime associate Bradford Malt" ( http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/mitt-romneys-blind-trust-blind/story?id=15188063 ):

When Mitt Romney faced questions on the campaign trail four years ago about investments in firms engaged in embryonic stem cell research, the presidential candidate had a ready explanation -- he was unaware because his vast financial portfolio was under the control of an independent trustee. Last week, Romney's campaign pulled out the same explanation when ABC News sought details about the candidate's holdings in the Cayman Islands, a notorious offshore tax haven.

"We remind you that Gov. Romney does not choose anything; these are BLIND TRUSTS," a campaign official wrote in an email.

But government ethics experts and election lawyers told ABC News that Romney's trust might not be quite as blind as he has long maintained. That's because Romney placed his quarter-billion dollar family fortune in the hands of his personal lawyer and longtime associate Bradford Malt.

Federal officeholders are required to either fully disclose all their financial holdings and any possible conflicts of interest, or place their holdings in a blind trust. Robert Kelner, a Republican election lawyer in Washington, D.C. with no ties to a current presidential campaign, explained the federal rules governing those blind trusts. "The Office of Government Ethics requires that a financial institution be appointed as the trustee and that the financial institution not be controlled by or have done business with the candidate," said Kelner. "It would preclude you from hiring your favorite lawyer as the trustee."

and from the recent Vanity Fair piece (at http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=77227185 ):

All the assets on Mitt’s financial disclosures are in blind trusts or retirement accounts held by him and Ann. Blind trusts are designed to avoid conflicts of interest for those in public office by having politicians’ assets managed by independent trustees. The Romneys’ blind trust was created when Mitt was elected governor of Massachusetts. Curiously, the Romneys appointed Bradford Malt as their trustee. It’s certainly true that under Malt the trusts don’t appear to be as blind as they might be: for instance, in 2010 the Romneys invested $10 million in the start-up of the Solamere Founders Fund, co-founded by their eldest son, Tagg, and Spencer Zwick, Romney’s onetime top campaign fund-raiser; Solamere is now in the Ann Romney blind trust. Malt has said he invested in Solamere without consulting Mitt or Ann and explained he liked Solamere because of its diversified approach and because he knew the founders and had confidence in them.

Likewise, the Romneys were reported to have invested at least $1 million in Elliott Associates, L.P., a hedge fund specializing in “distressed assets.” Elliott buys up cheap debt, often at cents on the dollar, from lenders to deeply troubled nations such as Congo-Brazzaville, then attacks the debtor states with lawsuits to squeeze maximum repayment. Elliott is run by the secretive hedge-fund billionaire and G.O.P. super-donor Paul Singer, whom Fortune recently dubbed Mitt Romney’s “Hedge Fund Kingmaker.” (Singer has given $1 million to Romney’s super-pac Restore Our Future.)

It is hard to know the size of these investments. Romney’s financial disclosure form lists 25 of them in an open-ended category, “Over $1 million,” including So­lamere and Elliott, and they are not broken down further. Romney hides behind a disclaimer that the fund managers “declined to provide such information” about their underlying assets. Many of these funds are set up in tax havens such as the Cayman Islands, where a confidentiality law states that you can be jailed for up to four years just for asking about such information.

Andrea Saul said of these investments, “Everything … was reported correctly.” Joseph Sandler, a Democratic lawyer who has worked with candidates on disclosures for more than two dec­ades, is skeptical. “The law is the law,” Sandler says. “[Romney] says, ‘Well, you know, they won’t tell me.’ But when you run for office in the U.S. and are not prepared to comply with disclosure requirements, you should either divest yourself of the assets or don’t run.” The Washington Post summarized the opinions of experts across the political spectrum by saying Romney’s disclosures were “the most opaque they have encountered.”

Mitt doesn't know? -- bullshit