Scandals! (IMPORTANT UPDATE)

Supposedly, Donald Trump's big "reveal" tomorrow will be that Michele Obama once filed for divorce because the marriage had hit a rough spot after Obama's failed run for a House seat. See here and here and here.

Even if this is true, I don't think it will amount to anything.

The Allred thing: Meanwhile, we now have a pretty good idea as to what Gloria Allred may or may not have on Mitt Romney. It's another divorce story.

The divorce was between Staples co-founder Tom Stemberg and his first wife Maureen. We're told the divorce battle lasted for years and was extremely ugly.

Sources tell us Romney gave both a deposition in the divorce and testified in the trial. According to our sources, the Boston Globe got a tip that there was "juicy information about Romney" in the sealed documents.

Romney, Stemberg and Maureen were all served papers by the Globe notifying them that the paper was trying to unseal the case and lift the gag order enforced on all parties.
According to an article in the Boston Globe in 2005, Maureen received nearly 500,000 shares of Staples stock in the divorce ... but sold her shares before the company went public.

Presumably, Allred represents Maureen.

This is all very droll, but until we learn more about this "juicy information," I don't see how any of this can impact the election. Still...intriguing. For more on Romney's history with Stemberg, see this piece by David Stockman, then go here and here. (SEE UPDATE BELOW!)

One final scandal: An unnamed source approached Republican party leaders with a story about Barack Obama selling cocaine during his college years. The source claims that he saw this personally. He also claims that he has other dirt on other Dems. The fact that the Republicans decided not to pursue this man's allegations tells me all I need to know about his credibility.

UPDATE:  Now I understand why the Maureen Sullivan Stemberg story could hurt Mitt. See here and here and here. (This is all best understood in light of the Vanity Fair piece here.)

The Stemberg divorce occurred in 1988. At the time, Romney (and Bain) had been in business with Stemberg for two years, getting Staples off the ground. See here:

In prepared remarks released by the Republican National Convention, Stemberg describes Romney as an extraordinary financial backer: “Mitt was not a typical investor. He was a true partner...."

In 1988, Staples was a company with a lot of potential, and Romney was in the thick of things. Obviously, Romney believed in the firm, or Bain would not have invested in it so heavily. And yet, during the divorce proceedings, Mitt Romney argued in court that Maureen's shares were highly over-valued.

It was about a year and half later later, in 1988 when called as a witness by Tom Stemberg’s lawyers for a divorce case that Romney said on record that Staples stock was, essentially, “over-valued. In his own-words, Romney said, “I didn’t place a great deal of credibility in the forecast of the company’s future.” (p. 441, appeals court document No. 95 P 286, Norfolk County) Romney is then asked how many times in the past he has “reviewed these kinds of offerings” (441).  Yet in the early Spring of 1989 Staples went public..

Most stories about the divorce leave out the key facts: Based on Mitt Romney's "over-valued" remarks, Maureen sold a large portion of her shares back to her former husband. She was paid $2.25 a share. But when the public offering occurred one year later, she learned that her shares were not "over-valued." In fact, she could have made a great deal more money -- $19 dollars a share.

Feeling betrayed, Maureen hired a well-known divorce lawyer named Monroe Inker to attain restitution. He failed. She then sued Inker for malpractice and lost.

This site dismisses Maureen's claims on the grounds that she has a strongly pro-Obama internet history. But it is very clear that her problems with Romney occurred long before Obama became a politician.

All of that said, I don't see how perjury can be proven. On a personal level, I'm quite willing to believe that Mitt lied to benefit his friend and business partner -- if only because the debates have shown us so many examples of Mitt's mendacity. But a personal belief is not courtroom-quality proof. If there is hard evidence demonstrating perjury, why didn't Monroe Inker find it?