Salt Lake Officials Warn IOC of More Trouble

Organizers of the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Games today warned members of the International Olympic Committee to brace for the release of yet more potentially embarrassing documents tied to the worst corruption scandal in Olympic history.

Dismayed, even angry, IOC members demanded that Salt Lake organizers stop the public release of any material that would affect their reputations.

“You cannot just issue any piece of paper,” said Julio Maglione, the IOC member from Uruguay. “That’s not democracy, that’s not freedom. Many roads based on good intentions lead to hell.”

But Mitt Romney, president of the Salt Lake City Organizing Committee, said state laws and SLOC bylaws require him to make public virtually all documents connected with Salt Lake’s scandal-tainted bid. The Salt Lake bid team wooed IOC members with more than $1 million in cash and other gifts.

Romney said he knew of 400 boxes in the hands of government investigators, with “thousands and thousands” of documents. He said he didn’t know what sort of material that might contain but told the IOC’s general assembly, “I’m not sure everything in those boxes will be accurate or fair.”

He also apologized for “any pain or hurt that these documents will cause” and said he shared “your outrage they were written in the first place.”