Enron collapse likened to Whitewater for Bush
Treasury Rebuffed Enron's Pleas
Enron sought government help to extend credit
From Wall Street to the White House:
The fallout from Enron's demise
Posted on 01/10/2002 7:38:27 PM PST by Uncle Bill
Edited on 04/22/2004 12:32:08 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Enron collapse likened to Whitewater for Bush
Treasury Rebuffed Enron's Pleas
Enron sought government help to extend credit
From Wall Street to the White House:
The fallout from Enron's demise
Pinnacle Towers in Sarasota,Florida was another that has been mentioned with Enron in news articles, for pulling a variation of the Enron scam,I have documents on Pinnacle that were obtained with a subpoena and it ain't a pretty sight.
As our elected and appointed officials know very well there is no downside to corruption,fraud or chicanery at the public expense if you have the appropriate political connections in Washington D.C. at the federal,state, and local levels.
At this level of play, involving billions of dollars our elected and appointed officials, both Democrat and Republican were clamoring all over this for a windfall of political dollars prior to bankruptcy.
Rule of thumb, if any scam in the U.S. can be used to reap enough political benefit for either party you can buy enough political clout to contravene both the "Rule of Law" and the Constitution.
The simple solution of recovering a large portion of this money could be obtained by bringing alleged federal racketeering charges against all the deep pockets at Enron, the CEO's,accountants, and their legal counsel under the theory of recovering treble damages.
Obviously this will never happen in the world of U.S. politics.
We have become a nation that is unable to elect or appoint leaders that are willing to be held accountable for their personal conduct or put ethics & integrity, before political and/or personal agendas.
Borrowing one of your phrases witness the "Fall of the Republic"
Pardon me for being redundant,but,you already knew all of this from your investigative research.
Both parties will agree to bail out the employees who lost their pensions. And that will be the end of it.
ENRON EXPLAINS BASIC FACTS ABOUT ITS 401K SAVINGS PLAN
SF prosecutor to probe Enron
ENRON: The trillion dollar fall-out
NEWS "ANALYSIS": President's Enron ties could lead to inquiries
Subpoenas, news of calls mark probes into Enron
Enron asked Treasury for aid
Enron largesse spread widely in Washington
Carnahan returned gift received from Enron last year - Gephardt gives ENRON $$ to charity
Did Enron's Auditors Think They Had Something to Hide?
Sen. Gramm's wife gets Enron subpoena
Sen. Gramm's wife gets Enron subpoena
The Power Elite: Enron and Frank Wisner
Minimizing the Enron Taint
Rubin Sought Aid for Enron
Justice picks prosecutor to head Enron investigation
15 Bush Officials Owned Enron Stock
Joe Lieberman's Largest Contributor is Enron's Largest Creditor
Bush DOE Granted Enron Waiver of Securities and Liability Regulations
Bush DOE Granted Enron Waiver of Securities and Liability Regulations
Federal Register
[Federal Register: May 15, 2001 (Volume 66, Number 94)] [Notices] [Page 26849]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr15my01-64]
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
[Docket No. ER01-1394-000, et al.]
Enron Energy Services, Inc., et al.; Notice of issuance of Order
May 9, 2001.
Enron Energy Services, Inc., et al. (Enron Energy) submitted for filing a rate schedule under which Enron Energy will engage in wholesale electric power and energy transactions at market-based rates. Enron Energy also requested waiver of various Commission regulations. In particular, Enron Energy requested that the Commission grant blanket approval under 18 CFR Part 34 of all future issuances of securities and assumptions of liability by Enron Energy.
On April 27, 2001, pursuant to delegated authority, the Director, Division of Corporate Applications, Office of Markets, Tariffs and Rates, granted requests for blanket approval under Part 34, subject to the following:
Within thirty days of the date of the order, any person desiring to be heard or to protest the blanket approval of issuances of securities or assumptions of liability by Enron Energy should file a motion to intervene or protest with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 888 First Street, NE., Washington, DC 20426, in accordance with Rules 211 and 214 of the Commission's Rules of Practice and Procedure (18 CFR 385.211 and 385.214).
Absent a request to be heard in opposition within this period, Enron Energy is authorized to issue securities and assume obligations or liabilities as a guarantor, indorser, surety, or otherwise in respect of any security of another person; provided that such issuance or assumption is for some lawful object within the corporate purposes of the applicant, and compatible with the public interest, and is reasonably necessary or appropriate for such purposes.
The Commission reserves the right to require a further showing that neither public nor private interests will be adversely affected by continued approval of Enron Energy's issuances of securities or assumptions of liability.
Notice is hereby given that the deadline for filing motions to intervene or protests, as set forth above, is May 29, 2001. Copies of the full text of the Order are available from the Commission's Public Reference Branch, 888 First Street, NE., Washington, DC 20426. The Order may also be viewed on the Internet at http://www.ferc.fed.us/online/rims.htm (call 202-208-2222 for assistance). Comments, protests, and interventions may be filed electronically via the internet in lieu of paper. See, 18 CFR 385.200(a)(1)(iii) and the instructions on the Commission's web site at http://www.ferc.fed.us/efi/doorbell.htm.
David P. Boergers, Secretary. [FR Doc. 01-12146 Filed 5-14-01; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6717-01-M
Concern over Enron's links to British parties and politicians
$600 MIL ENRON STOCK MAY HAVE PROPPED U.S. MARKET AFTER 9/11-Bill Clintons Name May Surface in Probe
Republican activists launch Enron website to show both sides of the story; List 35 Dems-Enron Links
ASHCROFT DESERVES A BETTER ROLE IN THE ENRON SCANDAL
Before Debacle, Enron Insiders Cashed in $1.1 Billion in Shares
THE ENRON AFFAIR: Shadowy path to state approval INDIAN AFFILIATE
Rubin Asked Treasury About Aid to Enron
Enron Asked Treasury to Call Bank
FOULING UP BY THE NUMBERS ON ENRON - WHEN WILL WE LEARN
$600 Billion Enron Shares May Have Propped US Market Post 9/11-Bill Clinton Could Surface in Probe
Enron Press Release
Enron Misled Employees on Stock
Hillary's Enron Moment
DUBYA - From Oil to Baseball to the Governor's Mansion
Post#70
"An interesting connection, here. Enron put about $50-mil of preferred stock investment into highly-leveraged Costilla Energy of Midland, which has now gone bust for a total loss to Enron, I suspect. Costilla is headed by GWB boyhood chum Cadell Liedtke, son of Watergate-era GOP bagman Bill Liedtke and nephew of GHWB's original business partner at Zapata Petroleum, J. Hugh Liedtke.
GWB appointed Cadell to a big deal state oil post, so we know they're acquainted. What's more intriguing, however, is that Cadell had Costilla pay an exhorbitant sum to buy a Canadian company from Cadell's brother Bill. What were that firm's assets? Dodgy exploration plays in Moldova and Romania, where it was in partnership with a Hunt entity.
Are we getting spooky enough yet? How about this: When Costilla got in a financial jam last year, after writing down to ZERO the brother firm's assets, Cadell sold the FSU plays to Castle Energy, a Pennsylvania company run by former banker Joe Castle and whose board is stacked with former Army secretaries and the like. Castle Energy was neck deep in the Metalgezellschaft futures debacle a few years back, which is STILL under investigation by Manhattan DA Robert Morganthau. Want more? Enron CEO Ken Lay, is a director Trust Company of the West in LA with, let's see: Carla Hills, Henry Kissinger, Robert "Bo" Day and other notables. Lay, of course, is a former Reagan era energy honcho and big-deal GOP fundraiser. You can read it all on EDGAR. Sweet dreams."
An excerpt from "Enron: The Global Gospel of Gas":
In this country Enron has traditionally been a major supporter of the Republican party. Ken Lay, the chief executive of Enron, hosted the Republican national convention in Houston in 1992. After George Bush, the incumbent president, lost the 1992 election, Enron started to pump money into Democratic coffers such as Lloyd Bentsen, another Texan, and Clinton's first treasury. In one Senate election campaign, the Democrat received more than $14,000 from Enron. According to the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Responsive Politics, the amount is the second highest paid out by Enron to a political campaign.
Bentsen quit his job as Treasury Secretary at the end of 1994 and was succeeded by Robert Rubin, who worked closely with Enron when he was co-chair of Goldman Sachs investment bank. Clinton first hired Rubin to head his National Economic Council. Soon afterwards, Rubin wrote on Goldman Sachs stationery to former clients, including Enron, saying he "looked forward to continuing to work with you in my new capacity."
After this ethical lapse, Rubin filed a White House financial disclosure form that listed Enron among the names of 42 former clients with whom he had had "significant contact." Rubin pledged to recuse himself from any government dealings affecting these former clients for one year, a period that has since lapsed.
Enron's lobbying clout was demonstrated in its attempts to deregulate the energy futures markets that enhance its profits. Enron was one of nine energy companies that asked the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in November 1992 to exempt energy derivative contracts from federal government oversight as well as from fraud laws. The request was made right after Bill Clinton won the U.S. presidential election at a time when the political composition of the board was likely to change soon. The five-member commission is made up of three members from the ruling party and two from the majority party.
The deregulatory push was advanced by Wendy Gramm, the CFTC chair, who authorized the commission staff to begin the lengthy rule-making process required when a federal agency makes a major policy decision. Gramm, a former senior staff member of the Reagan White House, resigned as chair of the commission on January 21, 1993, as Clinton took office. Wendy Gramm is the wife of Phil Gramm, the ultra-conservative Republican Senator from Texas.
Five weeks after Gramm resigned, she was appointed to Enron's board of directors, just as the commission voted two to one to deregulate the energy derivative contracts business. President Clinton had yet to appoint anyone to the two vacant seats on the CFTC board; the commissioners who embraced deregulation were Gramm allies appointed during the Bush administration.
The regulatory exemption for energy futures was made retroactive to 1974 - when the CFTC was created - to remove any potential legal challenges to past energy contracts. The exemption from fraud legislation that the industry wanted was dropped in response to objections in Congress. Gramm and Lay say there is no connection between the CFTC decision and Gramm's appointment to Enron's board.
Enron has also been under fire for the environmental impact of its activities at a company power plant in Boston. Each day, for six weeks in the summer of 1995, a million litres of water were trucked to the plant just outside Boston to prevent the Charles river from shrinking to less than half its normal flow as a result of plant operations.
In the early 1990s Enron bid for a contract to rebuild Shuaiba North, a 400-megawatt power plant that supplied 5 percent of Kuwait's electricity before it was bombed during the 1991 Gulf war, according to journalist Seymour Hersh.
Hersh wrote in a 1993 New Yorker magazine article that Enron's price for supplying the power is 11 cents a kilowatt hour. The rival bid put forward by the German company Deutsche Babcock was six cents, while the state-subsidized rate is half-a-cent a kilowatt hour.
Despite the large price difference, Hersh noted that Enron's bid received favorable consideration after help arrived from former US president George Bush, a good friend of Enron founder and chief executive Kenneth Lay. Lay, raised funds for Bush's 1992 re-election bid and hosted the reception committee for the Republican National Convention that year.
In 1993 Bush visited Kuwait along with former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker. At the time Baker, former Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher, as well as Thomas Kelly, the director of operations for Bush's Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf war, were on payroll working for Enron.
Hersh says in his New Yorker article that Baker, along with the former president's two youngest sons, Neil and Marvin, remained in Kuwait after Bush left to promote the Enron bid to rebuild Shuaiba with the Kuwaiti utility ministry. Their efforts apparently paid off initially. Hersh's sources told him that Enron's Kuwaiti business partners in the bid to rebuild Shuaiba had "obviously been hand picked" by the Kuwaiti prime minister. Enron calls the New Yorker article "completely incorrect." The company now says it has abandoned the project in Kuwait.
In Mozambique, the Philippines and Argentina, Enron has been accused of putting pressure on the local authorities through powerful figures in the United States government.
Pinnacle has other close ties to its auditor.
Mr. Day was a PricewaterhouseCoopers partner in the mergers-and-acquisitions group from 1986 until he joined Pinnacle as chief financial officer in 1997.
When Mr. Day became Pinnacle's chief operating officer in July, he was replaced by Jeffrey Card, who had worked as a PricewaterhouseCoopers acquisitions partner since 1991.
securities.stanford.edu/1017/BIGT01/20010323f01cNU.pdf
WSJ August 25, 2000
August 25, 2000
By MICHAEL SCHROEDER Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON -- Among companies rocked by accounting scandals, Waste Management Inc. stands out. After a board-led probe turned up years of questionable accounting, the company took a $3.5 billion charge in 1998, and since then the trash hauler and its outside auditor, Arthur Andersen LLP, agreed to pay $220 million to settle shareholder litigation in the matter.
Now, Waste Management's accounting headache may turn out to be notable in another way.
At the same time that Arthur Andersen was conducting the audits that failed to halt the questionable accounting, the firm was pocketing big fees for consulting services it provided Waste Management. The Securities and Exchange Commission is currently probing whether the consulting fees may have compromised the independence of Arthur Andersen's auditing work, according to several people familiar with the case.
As a result, the case is shaping up as a possible centerpiece of a campaign by the SEC to demonstrate that conflicts of interest can be caused by the proliferation of consulting and other nonauditing services that numerous accounting firms routinely offer, the knowledgeable people said.
From 1991 to 1997, Arthur Andersen received about $50 million in fees for consulting services at Waste Management sites world-wide, dwarfing the $10 million in audit payments during the same period, according to the knowledgeable people. The SEC, which declines to comment, is trying to determine if auditors looked the other way to keep consulting fees flowing.
David Barrett, an outside attorney for Arthur Andersen, said in an interview, "We're outraged someone leaked highly confidential information. Apparently it's being done to influence the SEC's rule making." He said that gross fee numbers can be highly misleading, but declined to comment further. Waste Management didn't immediately have a comment Thursday.
The general existence of a probe into Arthur Andersen's handling of Waste Management's financial statements has been known since April 1998, when the trash hauler, fresh from adopting more conservative accounting practices that increased truck-depreciation and other income-statement expenses, revealed the inquiry in an SEC filing.
At the time, an Andersen official termed it routine, saying an auditor's work is usually reviewed after a client restates earnings. The SEC, meanwhile, termed it "standard operating procedure in cases of alleged improprieties in financial statements to examine the accounting treatment that the statements received."
But since then, the SEC and some of the nation's biggest accounting firms have locked horns over the potential conflicts of interest that have arisen as revenue from consulting has dramatically run ahead of audit fees for the nation's biggest accounting firms. To the SEC, the desire of accounting firms to keep the consulting fees flowing threatens auditor independence by possibly prompting the accountants to overlook worrisome and too-aggressive bookkeeping practices. In June, the SEC proposed rules to significantly limit consulting services that auditors can offer corporate clients.
But public accountants, led by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Arthur Andersen, KPMG LLP and Deloitte & Touche LLP, have mounted an aggressive counter-attack, arguing that there is no justification for new limits and that the regulation would actually hurt audit quality by reducing an accounting firm's scope of knowledge about client companies.
"There's never been a case where an audit failure in any way related to nonaudit services," said Shaun O'Malley, retired chairman of the former Price Waterhouse LLP, citing a recent audit-effectiveness study sponsored by the Public Oversight Board, an accounting self-regulatory group.
Historically, however, the SEC has steered clear of the high-risk legal strategy of trying to prove an auditor was conflicted by the consulting side of the business. The goal generally has been to establish that the auditors acted recklessly in failing to uncover fraud. Between 1994 and late 1999, the SEC has brought 676 enforcement cases that included alleged accounting violations, ranging from bookkeeping problems to fraud.
"It's very difficult, if not impossible to prove" an independence violation in a blown audit, said SEC Chief Accountant Lynn Turner: "You'd have to get into the auditor's head."
In the Waste Management case, according to one of the knowledgeable people, the SEC believes that it may have "smoking-gun documents." Among particulars of the situation, a big chunk of Arthur Andersen's consulting work was on the trash hauler's centralized computer system, the people familiar with the matter said. Information technology is one of the areas that the SEC has proposed banning as a cross-sold service to audit clients.
While the SEC is assessing the link between the trash hauler's accounting woes and the consulting services, the regulators are pursuing other avenues as well.
Earlier this month, for instance, Pinnacle Holdings Inc., a fledgling real-estate investment trust that owns and operates antenna towers, revealed in an SEC filing that the agency is probing allegations that its auditor may have violated independence rules. In a recent conference call with Wall Street analysts, Steven Day, the company's chief operating officer, said the SEC was given a tip that it examine Pinnacle's accounting last year for its $254 million acquisition of an antenna business from Motorola Corp.
The inquiry is in preliminary stages and the SEC has alleged no wrongdoing; an SEC spokesman declined to comment. A spokesman for PricewaterhouseCoopers, the Pinnacle auditors, said: "Our independence with respect to Pinnacle has never been impaired. All of the services provided to Pinnacle were appropriate and allowable under existing SEC standards." Pinnacle's Mr. Day added: "We're no criminals here. There are no accounting issues. We've done our accounting appropriately."
In Pinnacle's case, the SEC is looking at whether Pinnacle can justify how it valued the Motorola assets, as well as how it tallied acquisition-related expenses, according to a person with knowledge of the probe. According to an SEC filing, Pinnacle recorded the unit's current assets at $271.7 million. The SEC also is examining Pinnacle's $28 million in acquisition expenses: such things as legal, consulting and accounting fees, the person familiar with the probe said. If some of the figures of that type are on the high side, they could work to increase earnings going forward, accounting experts said.
In addition to auditing, PricewaterhouseCoopers has advised Pinnacle on possible deals, including "due diligence" work on possible targets -- about $3.7 million alone in consulting fees for work on the Motorola deal -- and it has consulted for the board on executive compensation, according to company executives. "We pay a lot of fees to our auditor's consulting side," Mr. Day said in the conference call, but declined to provide details.
The SEC, he said, "looked at that relationship and said, 'If you're paying a lot of fees, maybe [the auditors] let you have your way on accounting and maybe you can do whatever you want do.' That's their position and their fear."
Pinnacle has other close ties to its auditor. Mr. Day was a PricewaterhouseCoopers partner in the mergers-and-acquisitions group from 1986 until he joined Pinnacle as chief financial officer in 1997. When Mr. Day became Pinnacle's chief operating officer in July, he was replaced by Jeffrey Card, who had worked as a PricewaterhouseCoopers acquisitions partner since 1991.
The SEC's aggressiveness on the auditor-independence front follows years in which it spotted disturbing circumstantial evidence of fraudulent financials that might have been approved by a conflicted auditor. An example: the $500 million accounting fraud at Phar-Mor Inc., Youngstown, Ohio, which led the drugstore chain to seek bankruptcy-court protection in 1992. (It emerged from the bankruptcy proceedings in 1995.) In 1996, a federal jury in Pittsburgh hearing a shareholder suit found Coopers & Lybrand LLP liable under a fraud claim for signing off on financials recklessly without regard to whether they were true or false.
The audit partner viewed Phar-Mor as a "constant source of new business," plaintiff's attorneys argued in the case.
For their part, the accounting firms say the AICPA is an effective regulatory body. In addition to a policy-making role, it has a disciplinary panel and a full-time staff of 14 to investigate alleged violations. The SEC is "scratching in the mud everywhere they can to find an example, as if a single case would prove there's a significant risk to the economy," said Robert Elliott, AICPA chairman.
But the panel doesn't have the tools or authority to police the industry aggressively. It probes allegations made in SEC cases and in civil-shareholder lawsuits. But the panel has authority to investigate only its own members and doesn't have subpoena power to demand documents.
The AICPA has or is investigating 117 of the 676 SEC cases, so far resulting in 31 violations. Penalties range from public-auditing suspensions to reprimand letters. The big accounting firms note that board audit committees also exist to identify and handle potential problems.
Write to Michael Schroeder at mike.schroeder@wsj.com1
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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
TAMPA DIVISION
____________________________________
FLORENCE FOSTER, on behalf of )
herself and all others similarly situated, )
)
Plaintiff, )
)
v. )
PINNACLE HOLDINGS INC., STEVEN )
R. DAY, JEFFREY J. CARD, and )
ROBERT WOLSEY )
Defendants. )
___________________________________ )
Plaintiff makes the following allegations, except as to allegations specifically
plaintiff and her counsel, based upon the investigation undertaken by plaintiff's counsel, which
investigation included analysis of publicly-available news articles and reports, public filings,
releases and other matters of public record.
NATURE OF THE ACTION
1. This is a class action on behalf of all purchasers of the common stock of
Holdings Inc., ("Pinnacle" or the "Company") between January 18, 2000 and March 17, 2001,
inclusive, (the "Class Period"), seeking to pursue remedies under the Securities Exchange Act of
(the "Exchange Act").
2. During the Class Period defendants issued press releases and filed public
with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), touting the Company's increasing financial
strength through numerous acquisitions of wireless tower sites, as well as its recent acquisition
F:\POSSIBLE\dar00789.wpd - March 23, 2001 (3:42PM)
assets from Motorola, Inc. In response, the price of Pinnacle securities traded at over $75 per
March, 2000.
SNIPPETS:
|
Pinnacle Bank - All The Usual Suspects
From Here:
"The oil kick-backs were funneled through the Chicago branch of Italy's largest bank, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro [BNL], owned in part by the Vatican. According to Congressional documents, BNL was the twin and interlocked with Bank of Credit and Commerce International [BCCI]. BCCI has been a worldwide crime, political murder, and espionage operation that became, supposedly, defunct in 1991. Actually, BCCI has continued on through its successor and alter ego, Pinnacle Banc Group, whose flag-ship is First National Bank of Cicero (Chicago mafia enclave suburb).
...Starting in the early 1980s, BNL and BCCI set up branches in major cities in the U.S., including Chicago. This was arranged by partners in the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock and through their client, Stephens & Co., largest bond brokers worldwide, outside of Wall Street. Forming the branches required greasing the palms of state and federal bank regulators and others, around the country. Facilitating this corruption were two of the Rose Law Firm partners, Hillary Rodham Clinton and her law partner/lover, Vincent W. Foster, Jr."
"Who Is David Edwards?"
"While at Stephens, Mr. Edwards also played an important role in securing an offshore drilling contract in Bahrain for Harken Energy Corp., on whose board sat George W. Bush, presidential son and current governor of Texas."
The Jackson Stephens Empire - Death, Money Laundering, Spying and the Octopus
The Lippo Group and BCCI
September 10, 1996
Letter to the Editors:
Lippo Group is one of the largest contributors to the Democratic Party, via one Arief Wiriandinata, eh? According to your editorial "The November Stall", 9/6/96, Wiriandinata is married to the daughter of Hashim Ning, a co-investor of the Lippo Group.
Ah yes, Lippo Group, right? They own Lippo Bank of California. You know Lippo Bank. It's run by James Riady who attended the pre-inaugeral economic summit in Little Rock [representing Lippo Bank, the only foreign company at the affair], the Asian-Pacific Economic conference in Seattle in Nov. 1993 [where he shared a breakfast table with then WH Chief of Staff Mack McLarty], a June 1994 salute to Vice President Al Gore in Washington, and was on hand for Clinton's November 1994 visit to Indonesia.
You know James Riady, right? Mochtar Riady's son, and former President of Worthen Bank of Arkansas. You know Mochtar Riady, right? The right hand man of General Suharto of Indonesia, also a major investor of Lippo Group, and formerly a major shareholder in Worthen Bank. You know Worthen Bank, right? Jackson Stephens of Stephens, Inc. of Little Rock and Riady garnered controlling interest in Worthen 1984, through Lippo Group. Later, Lippo Group and Stephens tried to buy BCCI Hong Kong when it was put on the auction block after the Bank of Credit and Commerce imploded in global scandal.
You know BCCI, right? The bank that illegally entered the American banking system when they secretly bought control of Financial General Bankshares...You know Financial General Bankshares, right? The bank that Stephens tried to takeover on behalf of BCCI principals? In April, 1981 the Federal Reserve was assured by the influential Washingtonians that the Arab backers were merely passive investors, and FBG's takeover was given the green light. Director of that Federal Reserve Board was Jack Ryan.
You know Jack Ryan, right? Ryan ran the RTC without the benefit of Congressional vetting after Roger Altman resigned in shame for giving the White House a series of "heads-ups' regarding the RTC/ Whitewater referrals. [Who exactly was April Breslaw referring to when she told RTC investigator Jean Lewis that higher-ups would like the Whitewater referrals to disappear?] Jack Ryan conveniently "forgot" to include in his public resume that he worked for Arky, Fried, etc. from February 1985 to September 1986. Arky, Fried tied into the S&L scandals of the 1980's. Stephen Arky, the "Arky" of Arky Fried, committed suicide in July 1985. Ryan has declined to be interviewed regarding this period of his life. Curious name that: Arky. That's the same name of the mysterious $53 million account found at BCCI's commodities unit that no one could ever account for. It operated from October 1984 to September 1985.
Which brings us back to BCCI. You know, the bank controlled by Arabs who used D.C. insiders Clark Clifford and Robert Altman as front men? You know, Altman and Clifford, right? They were indicted on the BCCI scandals and represented at various times by the lawyers, Robert Fiske, Robert Bennett, and Jamie Gorelick in BCCI related litigation. You know this trio of Fiske, Bennett and Gorelick, right? Fiske was the first Independent Counsel assigned to investigate Whitewater, and who's only released finding was that Vincent Foster commit suicide in Fort Marcy Park; Bennett is now the Clinton's personal lawyer, and Jamie Gorelick is #2 at the Department of Justice.
Ah, the Department of Justice. Webb Hubbell used to be #3 at the DOJ and was very much involved when they gave BCCI principal Swaleh Naqvi a most gracious "sweetheart" deal.
You recall Nagvi? Not only was he #2 at BCCI, but he was also a defendant with Arkansas' Jackson Stephens in the 1978 lawsuit that resulted from Stephens' first attempt to secretly gain control of FGB for the Arab backers. Systematics was also a defendant. You know Systematics, right? Stephens controlled Systematics at the time. Their defense brief in the BCCI litigation was signed by Hillary Rodham [Clinton] and Webb Hubbell.
You know, Webb Hubbell...the guy who was "employed" by Lippo Group between the time he resigned from the Department of Justice in disgrace and the time he plead guilty to federal charges which landed him in jail for a couple of years.
Which brings us back to Lippo Group. Even though to this day neither the White house nor Commerce departments will release the list of people who went on the infamous junket to Jakarta in 1994 [litigation is in progress], Lippo Group was one of the contract recipients. You know Jakarta, right? That's where Mochtar Riady came from before he suddenly decided to move to Little Rock, Arkansas. That's where Dwight Harlan lives and serves as a "consultant". You know Dwight Harlan, right? Dwight Harlan served as the President of Jim Guy Tucker's Castle Sewer & Water...the utility that Tucker bought in a $1.2 million dollar deal that the Government says was fraudulent. You know Tucker, right? He was found guilty and was supposed to serve 4 years behind bars but got paroled before going to jail, and still faces charges regarding his cable company and dealings in Plantation, Florida. You know Tucker's cable company, right? The one whose former general manager was Dwight Harlan. You remember the indictment, right? Both Jim Guy Tucker and John Haley are defendants. You know John Haley? He's the former husband of Maria Haley. You know Maria Haley? When she served under then Governor Clinton in Arkansas she was in charge of international business development. Now she's a director of the Export-Import Bank. You know Ex-Im Bank, right? They signed the $40 billion of commercial transactions that were negotiated on Clinton's Jakarta trip in 1994.
But this has nothing to do with Bill Clinton.
Just because Jackson Stephens and Worthen Bank saved his career when the Bevill, Bresler scandal broke and Clinton was facing state losses of $52 million which threatened his career; just because Worthen saved his candidacy in 1992 with an "unusual" $3 million line of credit when his campaign was broke; just because Clinton's wife was involved in BCCI litigation, just because so many of the BCCI cast of characters have been appointed by President Clinton to serve him in a myriad of positions; just because the Jim Guy Tucker charges weave in and out of Bill's financial dealings, business partners and close friends; just because Vincent Foster's brother-in-law Beryl Anthony is the lobbyist for the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, where Lippo runs the show, and Foster's sister serves as a high ranking DOJ attorney; just because Webb Hubbell was working for Lippo Group, and in the office next to Michael Cardozo at G. Wm. Miller; just 'cause Cardozo and Hubbell were the guys who "coincidentally" met Foster at the Eastern shore the last weekend of his life; just 'cause Clinton anointed Tucker his successor as Governor of Arkansas, well, heck folks...This has nothing to do with Bill Clinton.
Sincerely,
Missy Kelly
WASHINGTON, Nov 13, 1995 (IPS) - Enron, the world's largest natural gas company, announced Monday that it had signed an agreement to build a gas pipeline from Mozambique to South Africa, despite Mozambican protests over alleged political pressure from top U.S. officials.The 700-million-dollar investment deal is to develop the Pande gas field, in southern Mozambique, which has an estimated two trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves. Enron beat Sasol, the South African state petroleum processing company, for the bid.
In a statement released at its Houston headquarters, Enron, with 13 billion dollars in assets, said it plans to find South African buyers for the gas. The company will be responsible for gas production as well as building a 900-kilometre pipeline to deliver the gas to South Africa as early as 1998.
Earlier this month the Houston Chronicle carried a detailed report alleging that Anthony Lake, President Bill Clinton's National Security Adviser, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the U.S. Embassy in Maputo, have pressed the Mozambican government to sign with Enron.
The deal is an example of Washington's high-powered commercial diplomacy -- a major feature of the foreign policy of President Bill Clinton.
After heavy lobbying by senior U.S. officials early this year, Enron signed a 2.8-billion-dollar contract with the Indian state government of Maharastra to build a power plant near Bombay. After state elections, however, a new government complained about the price of the plant and alleged corruption in the clinching of the deal. Earlier this month -- again, reportedly after more lobbying by U.S. officials, Maharastra government officials and Enron agreed to renegotiate the deal.
Argentinian and Kuwaiti offficials have also accused the company of using political pressure to land contracts. Three sons of former President George Bush were allegedly involved in helping Enron in those two countries.
Enron also has well-connected former government figures working directly for the company. James Baker and Robert Mosbacher, former secretaries of state and commerce, respectively, under Bush, advise the company, as does retired Gen. Thomas Kelly, former chief of operations of the U.S. effort during the 1990 Gulf War.
Separately, Filipino officials have accused Enron of overcharging on contracts, although a 1993 investigation cleared the company of liability.
In Mozambique, Enron appears to have decided to ignore the allegations of political arm-twisting. But at least one government official has decided to speak out.
''There were outright threats to withhold development funds if we didn't sign, and sign soon,'' John Kachamila, Mozambique's natural resources minister and the leader in the negotiations, told the Chronicle.
''Their diplomats, especially Mike McKinley (deputy chief of the U.S. Embassy), pressured me to sign a deal that was not good for Mozambique. He was not a neutral diplomat. It was as if he was working for Enron,'' said Kachamila.
''We got calls from American senators threatening us with this and that if we didn't sign. Anthony Lake even called to tell us to sign,'' he added.
Dennis Jett, U.S. ambassador to Mozambique, did not deny that he has helped Enron. ''When asked about his time spent on helping to bring off the Enron deal, Jett simply pointed to a 2-foot-high stack of files on his desk,'' according to John Fleming, the Chronicle reporter.
''Jett said he spent endless hours talking to Mozambican officials on Enron's behalf and taking Enron representatives for meetings with the prime minister and other top ministers,'' says Fleming.
Mozambique officials say that they faced an uphill battle against the U.S. embassy because the country is very dependent on foreign aid, and Washington is its biggest bilateral donor.
Some 1.1 billion dollars of the southern African country's 1.5 billion dollar budget comes from outside the country, including 40 million dollars from USAID.
''Enron was forever playing games with us and the embassy forever threatening to withdraw aid. Everyone was saying that we would not sign the deal because I wanted a percentage, when all I wanted was a better deal for the state,'' said Kachamila.
''So Enron caved in to our demands, especially after the World Bank commissioned a study that found many of our concerns were warranted. Now let me ask you: Who is corrupt here? To me, it is Enron for trying to shove this rotten deal down our throats,'' he said.
Diane Bazelides, an Enron spokesperson in Houston, would not comment on Kachamila's comments but she confirmed that the U.S. government had been ''helpful as it always is with American companies.''
''This isn't a business negotiation anymore: this has turned into a political issue,'' says Carlos Cardoso, the editor of Mozambique's influential daily, MediaFax.
The political fall-out from Enron's win over Sasol may prove fatal to the deal because the potential buyers for the gas are South African companies who may shun the U.S. company.
An official of the International Finance Corporation -- the Bank affiliate which supports private sector activities in developing countries -- told IPS that Enron has applied for a loan to finance the deal. The amount of money requested was not disclosed.
Clinton Link With Enron Lowers The Heat On Bush
Democrats: Don't Gloat About Enron
Enron's Kenneth Lay may have misled employees on share price
POWER SCAM: THE ENRON-BUSH CONNECTION
Column: Dumb and dumber with Enron
Here's what Andrew Fastow told CFO in 1999 about those now-infamous third-party investments at Enron
"In an interview with CFO in mid-1999, Fastow asserted that he had helped keep almost $1 billion in debt off Enron's balance sheet through the use of a complex and innovative arrangement. "It's not consolidated and it's nonrecourse," he told CFO."
Gore Chairman Met With Spies - William M. Daily
Enron’s Blackout Cuts Power Behind Numerous Thrones
Update of December 3, 2001: The banking -- and Citigroup -- story of the week is clearly the implosion of Enron, to which Citigroup has a reported exposure of $800 million. The Wall Street Journal of November 30 notes that Citigroup ""won an investment-banking mandate on the failed Enron-Dynegy Inc. deal only after agreeing to extend fresh loans to the troubled energy trader," and reports that a "Citigroup spokesman declined to comment." Rather, Citigroup continues to set its sights overseas, including continuing to move in on the Anglo-Asian bank Standard Chartered, whose CEO resigned last week, to be replaced by Mervyn Davies, who until 1993 worked for Citibank... In Cairo, Egyptian American Bank (EAB -- now the main EAB, after Citigroup's Long Island, NY acquisition earlier this year) announced that it's in talks to be sold to, you guessed it, Standard Chartered. Citi's global deal making goes on -- the Fed, for example, claims that no public comment will be allowed on Citigroup's proposal to acquire branches in Kenya -- while, in the aftermath of Enron's imposition, it's increasingly clear that the deregulatory emperor has no clothes. Citigroup can (and does, but that's another story) cost taxpayers billions of dollars, and yet it's scarcely regulated....
The Financial Times reported on November 29 that ""U.S. investigators believe about half the $500,000 that the hijackers spent on the September 11 plot was sent by Mustafa Ahmad, who is today regarded by investigators as bin Laden's finance chief, via Dubai money exchanges through Citibank in New York and on to Florida." Citigroup has not stated whether it filed a Suspicious Activity Report when this money passed through it. The Federal Reserve Board's ex-head of anti-money laundering, Richard Small, is now co-head of the same terrain at Citigroup. Citi was hiring not only expertise, but access... For more coverage of these issues, click here.
(Real video) - Arthur Andersen - Accounting firm reveals it destroyed documents
(Real video) - Ashcroft recuses self from Enron case - Bush Response
For the children
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