Justice Dept Opens Enron Criminal Investigation

FOXNews | 9 January, 2002 | Brit Hume

[YaYa123]

Brit Hume just interrupted the regular news to say The Justice Department has announced it will open a criminal investigation into Enron, with Justice Department officials in Houston, New York, San Francisco in charge.

Hume just made the one or two sentence announcement. I'll keep looking for wire stories or news on other networks. (Gee, Hope I'm not the last one who heard of this)

[YaYa123]

MSNBC has this as a bulletin:

"U.S. opens criminal probe of Enron
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 — The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into Enron Corp., whose employees lost billions when the company went bankrupt."

[Bernard Marx]

This is almost funny. When Waxman and Lieberman start their Third Degree I can almost hear the witnesses saying: "I can't comment on an open investigation." Who says Republicans can't learn?

[sinkspur]

When Waxman and Lieberman start their Third Degree I can almost hear the witnesses saying: "I can't comment on an open investigation." Who says Republicans can't learn?

This will put everybody in the Justice department off limits.

It may also put certain people in Enron off-limits.

That Democrat playbook may come in handy.

[YaYa123]

Good point!!!

No joke folks, I just copy/pasted the following from abcnews.com:

WIRE: 01/09/2002 6:37 pm ET

Enron-Investigation

The Associated Press

PITTSBURGH (AP) The Pittsburgh Steelers' divisional playoff game will be Sunday, Jan. 20, at Heinz Field at 12:30 p.m. EST The Steelers (13-3), the AFC's top-seeded team, will play the lowest-seeded team to advance from this weekend's two AFC wild-card games.

If the sixth-seeded New York Jets (10-6) win at Oakland (10-6) for the second week in a row, they will play the Steelers, who handed the Jets their only road loss in an 18-7 win in Pittsburgh on Dec. 9.

If the Raiders win, they will play at New England (11-5) on Jan. 19, and the Steelers will play the winner of Sunday's game between Baltimore (10-6) and Miami (11-5) at Miami.

The playoff game will be the Steelers' first since their 24-21 loss to Denver in the AFC championship game during the 1997 season.

Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed."

[KQQL]

Government to Investigate Enron ,

01/09/2002 6:40 PM EST

By KAREN GULLO

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into Enron Corp., whose employees lost billions when the company went bankrupt.

The department has formed a task force, headed by the criminal division, that is comprised of federal prosecutors in Houston, San Francisco, New York and several other cities, said a Justice Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Labor Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission are conducting civil investigations.

Enron, which was formed in 1985 and has 20,000 employees, was once the world's top buyer and seller of natural gas and the largest electricity marketer in the United States. It also marketed coal, pulp, paper, plastics, metals and fiber-optic bandwidth.

One likely focus of the Justice Department investigation: Possible fraud based on Enron's heavy reliance on off-balance-sheet partnerships which took on Enron debt. The partnerships masked Enron's financial problems and left its credit ratings healthy so it could obtain the cash and credit crucial to running its trading business.

[YaYa123]

Thanks KQQL

CBSNews.com doesn't have a story up even yet.

[Amerigomag]

Well said.

Even a pale comparison from 43's lips would be refreshing.

Don't hold your breath.

[FixitGuy]

Whaddaya bet in less than a week,

"Justice department probe closed. Officials speaking under the protection of anonimity, find no criminal wrong doing!"

"In a related story, ex-officials of ENRON offer one wheel of Cheddar to to be partitioned equally among those investors who lost money."

They further stated, "Investing is a risky business!"

[sinkspur]

One of the first targets should be Phil Graham, who was funneled at least $250,000, through his wife who was on Enron's board.

You can't even spell the guy's name right, and it's in the story you posted!

If Wendy Gramm embezzled money or was complicit in fraud, she should be prosecuted.

My guess is, she didn't know a thing about any of this.

[deport]

There will be plenty of targets to go around, but outside Enron's top level management one of the first should be Arthur Andersen in an effort to determine how they were unable to discover all this manipulation and thus certified Enron's accounting practices/entries to be according to Hoyle. At a million dollars a week Arthur Anderson surely had a cadre of top accountants working on the books.

[AntiScumbag]

not only can't mr. tree spell, but both he and the clowns suing wendy gramm because she's a board member don't have a clue

if you assume her sale was accomplished in a single transaction (10,000 shares was certainly no big deal in an issue that routinely traded millions of shares per day) and do the math, it works out to exactly 27 bucks per share

ene has traded at 27 on exactly 6 days since the high at about 92 in august of 2000 - 9/19-20-24-25-28/01 and 10/19/01

so, let's see, wendy knew all about the massive fraud, and therefore she waited 13 months for 667k of value to disappear before finally selling her shares for 277k

oh, wait, phil announced his retirement on 9/04/01, and her shares were sold somewhere between 2 and 7 weeks, and probably between 15 and 24 days, later

gee, i guess no pair of married public figures would take a couple of weeks to carry out a reordering of their affairs after announcing retirement, would they?

sorry boys, the best you're gonna get from barking up her tree is a nuisance settlement from the insurance company that had the misfortune to write the director's e&o policy

[ReaganGirl]

Very well written. Here's hoping that is just what he does in this matter.

When you get tired of chasing ambulances for a living let me know. I'll give you a job in PR.

[AntiScumbag]

nothing more or less than payola to her and her husband.
was clearly bribed to look the otherway

my, my, you certainly do like to spout unproven allegations, don't you?

i'll bet you think all director's compensation amounts to "payola" and/or "bribery"

there are real crimes hear

that nasty apparent inability to spell surfaces again, in another unproven allegation

better start a chorus crime for the lynch rope

and the rabidity quotient of your rant goes ballistic

i think i hear someone calling you back to democratic underground for disruption consultations, that "lynch rope" thing exposed your mentality