At Monday's debate, and again last night, Mitt Romney claimed Bain Capital never worked with any company that worked with the government—like Medicare or Medicaid. Even when asked directly by Newt Gingrich, Romney responded, "We didn’t do any work with the government. I didn’t have an office on K Street. I wasn`t a lobbyist. I didn’t—had never worked—I’ve never worked in Washington."

Once again, Mitt Romney has demonstrated that he will say anything to get elected— regardless of whether or not it's true. Romney served on the board of, and personally pocketed more than $500,000 from, Damon Corporation—a company that was later found to have fraudulently swindled Medicare out of millions of dollars. DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz released a memo today outlining Romney's involvement in Damon Corporation's medicare fraud:

"On behalf of my constituents in Florida’s 20th District, many of whom have already paid the price for Medicare fraud, I believe that Mitt Romney must provide answers to his involvement in the Damon Corporation case—what he knew about the fraud being carried out, why he falsely claimed to have stopped it, and why he failed to notify federal investigators and shareholders about the company’s illegal activities."

Let's look at the facts: while serving on the board at Damon Corporation, Romney and Bain Capital "made large profits … whose robust revenues were generated in part on a criminal scheme to fraudulenty bill the federal medicare system for unecessary blood tests." Years later, Damon corporation pled guilty to $25 million in Medicare fraud and paid a record $119 million fine. [Boston Globe, 10/10/02]

In addition to his lies at this week's debates, Romney previously claimed he tried to blow the whistle on Damon. His exact words? "We put in place a program to stop that immediately." Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that this claim is false as well:

"Romney’s comments are contradicted by federal court records and Damon’s SEC filings. Prosecutors in the case said the fraud at Damon was cleaned up by Corning, after it purchased the firm from Bain and other owners and revised the billing process. Other court records, including Damon’s blood testing records, show that the practice that was found to be criminal continued until August 1993, many months after Romney said he and the board put an end to it." [Boston Globe, 10/11/02] 

So why would Mitt Romney lie? He's running for office, for Pete's sake.