Gloria Allred's October surprise for Mitt Romney easily clears legal hurdle.

I'm sorry, what got unsealed today?

Courtesy of Alternet:

The controversy over Romney’s alleged lies under oath continues this Thursday, as a Massachusetts court unseals a testimony that some speculate could be devastating for the presidential candidate.

The famed feminist lawyer Gloria Allred has said that Mitt Romney lied in the divorce proceedings between her client, Maureen Sullivan Stemberg, and her husband, Tom, in order to protect the financial wealth of the former CEO of Staples. If the allegations are true, the revelation could be yet another blow to the GOP during an election cycle in which many of the candidates have played old-boy’s-club politics and demonstrated disregard and sometimes outright scorn for women. 

The case in question began more than 20 years ago, when Mitt Romney--then hedge funder at Bain Capital--testified in the divorce proceedings on behalf of Staples-CEO Tom Stemberg, at the time Romney’s close friend and business partner. The divorce hearings occurred shortly before Staples--which has become the GOP’s misleading poster child for Bain Capital’s financial track record--went public, earning Stemberg and Bain Capital millions. 

In the testimony, however, Romney allegedly lied about the future of the company, saying it was “overvalued” and that Stemberg was a “dreamer” for thinking the company could grow large. As a result, Maureen received very little in the divorce settlement--only to learn that her husband and his cohort Mitt Romney quickly turned around and cashed in their own stocks in Staples for a small fortune right after the divorce was finalized.

Of course we are left to speculate as to just how damaging this testimony might be to Mitt Romney and his campaign, but as you do perhaps you ought to consider this tidbit as well: 

Parties in the case also signed a confidentiality agreement that Gloria Allred, the attorney for Sullivan Stemberg, called “the most comprehensive gag order I have ever seen in my 36 years of practicing law.”

Now that might simply be hyperbole on Allred's part, but if not then one has to wonder just WHAT exactly is so damaging in these documents that Romney's attorneys felt the need to constrain Maureen Sullivan Stemberg so aggressively.

And if this is as it is described, a case of Mitt Romney working with a male counterpart to defraud his wife through the use of deception, one has to wonder exactly how this will play out with female voters who are already quite suspicious of the Republican challenger.

In my estimation it will not only cause significant distress among the women, but it will further go on to raise issues of trust with ALL of the potential voters who have not yet had the opportunity to cast their ballot.

After all if the man is willing to lie under oath, in a court of law.......