THE STUMP JANUARY 30, 2012
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Viewers of last week's CNN Republican debate in Florida were introduced to a new figure about whom we will surely be hearing more this year: Mitt Romney's "trustee." Romney referred to him four times in response to questions about his just-released 2010 tax returns -- never in person but instead as "my trustee," a word that rolls off Romney's lips as "my barber" or "my car guy" rolls off the lips of most Americans.
Well, today the Boston Globe introduced us to this mysterious figure. R. Bradford Malt (great name for a trustee!) is the chairman of Boston's largest law firm, Ropes & Gray, the son of a surgeon who oversaw the first reattachment of a human limb, and he goes way back with Romney. As the Globe recounts, Malt, who specializes in private equity deals, was "at his weekend home in New Hampshire" in 1990 when Romney reached him for help in rescuing Bain & Co., the consulting company from which Bain Capital was spun off, from bankruptcy. Malt rushed back to Boston late at night and got the job done. A few years later, Romney asked Malt, who was also doing work for Bain Capital, to oversee several family trusts, and a few years after that, Romney again turned to Malt to successfully make the case prior to the 2002 gubernatorial race that he had retained Massachusetts residency during his stint running the Utah Olympics. The Globe quotes a nice 1994 line of Romney's: “Brad could take out your liver, if he needed to save your life, and you’d never even know it.’’
Well, Malt hasn't removed any life-threatening organs from Romney, but he has removed some campaign-threatening assets from his vast financial holdings, including his $3 million Swiss bank account. Not that Malt thinks that people had any reason to get worked up about the account: “It’s actually kind of crazy,’’ Malt told the Globe. “This is a fully legitimate, fully reported account that pays every penny of taxes.’’
As it happens, high-class origins, a Harvard degree and a remarkable tone-deafness about public perceptions of extreme wealth are not the only things Romney and Malt share. We already know about Romney's fondness for pranks -- staging a fancy-dress dinner in the median of a busy thoroughfare, staging a fake police arrest of two friends and their dates. Well, he's found himself a match in Malt:
In the office, Malt is known for his pranks. Recently, for example, he secretly changed the bland ring tone on a senior partner’s cellphone to a bolder rock song, “Rockstar’’ by the Canadian group Nickelback, and then proceeded to dial the phone during a large meeting.
Said Julie Jones, a Ropes partner: “He is the original Ashton Kutcher of Ropes & Gray.’’
Here's another good prank Malt and Romney could pull off together: Have Romney invest heavily in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and then turn around and start bashing those GSEs, and Newt Gingrich's role in working for them. Then, when he's called on his investments, have him claim that he didn't know about them because they were in Malt's formal blind trust. Except they weren't! Romney knew about them. Hilarious!
10 comments
Great reporting Alec.
- WandreyCer
January 30, 2012 at 2:47pm
We know Malt can count: his undergraduate degree (Harvard) is in applied mathematics.
- rayward
January 30, 2012 at 2:59pm
Family trusts. $3M Swiss bank accounts. Why do you engage in the politics of divisiveness and envy? And board room hijinks. Nickelback. Please. Behind the music that sucks.
- dubyadoubte
January 30, 2012 at 3:50pm
Dubyadoubte, I can't tell whether or not you're being sarcastic or not. If not, I'm with you. This line on Romney is a loser for Democrats. It's as if all of us Americans were out there in Eureka creek panning for gold. Along comes some wiseass making fun of the one prospector who dug up a forty pound nugget. As hapless and hopeless as we might be, the rest of us 49ers aren't going to take kindly to the joke: it's like he's ridiculing the whole enterprise, the whole search for gold, which means in effect that he's ridiculing us.
- AaronW
January 30, 2012 at 4:23pm
Dubyadoubte, I can't tell whether or not you're being sarcastic or not. If not, I'm with you. This line on Romney is a loser for Democrats. It's as if all of us Americans were out there in Eureka creek panning for gold. Along comes some wiseass making fun of the one prospector who dug up a forty pound nugget. As hapless and hopeless as we might be, the rest of us 49ers aren't going to take kindly to the joke: it's like he's ridiculing the whole enterprise, the whole search for gold, which means in effect that he's ridiculing us.
- AaronW
January 30, 2012 at 4:24pm
I await the sorry spectacle of Jay Leno, who owns, like, three hundred classic cars and motorcycles, making fun of Romney for his outlandish wealth.
- AaronW
January 30, 2012 at 4:34pm
AaronW: A better Gold Rush analogy for Romney would be the guy who buys up all the property along Eureka Creek, evicts the hardworking prospectors, brings in his own low paid work force, excavates and pollutes the stream extracting the gold, sells the property and moves on with his (low taxed) profits.
- appleton
January 30, 2012 at 5:05pm
Fine. I'll buy that, appleton. But then that's the case Democrats need to make, not this, "Let's laugh at this out-of-touch rich man who thinks money grows on trees and in his youth pulled a few fairly innocuous pranks." This is the second time in TNR I have read a mention of this dinner party that Romney supposedly three on a median strip. Who cares? Who was harmed by such a "prank"? It sounds like the sort of whimsical stunt my friends might have pulled when we were in college, and if anything it makes me like the Mittster a little more.
- AaronW
January 30, 2012 at 5:49pm
It IS a great name. Right up there with C. Montgomery Burns. And I thought Newt Gingrich was Ashton Kutcher. I don't recall Romney cheating on, then dumping, his older wife.
- miceelf
January 31, 2012 at 2:26pm
I'm with you, AaronW, this dinner party prank definitely has "props" written all over it.
It's good to know that Mittens lied about the blind trust and his investments in government managed housing debacle. Not terribly surprising, mind you; but it's good to know specifics, rather than be left wondering exactly how much of what he says is fabricated.
And I certainly appreciate the sarcasm, we can probably do without the ridicule and anecdotes about how Mitt is tone-deaf and out of touch with the common American. I think there's enough material on qualities that are relevant to a good POTUS to make it seem petty and belligerent. For instance, you could discuss his overwhelming generosity in tithing 15% to the Mormon Church, and all the wonderful projects that has funded: like the jobs they created by having another massively ornate and posh cathedral built, or the decision to spend the money trying to save peoples' souls instead of filling their bellies.
- GSpinks
January 31, 2012 at 2:46pm