Posted on 01/11/2002 10:39:10 AM PST by umbra
Edited on 04/29/2004 1:59:56 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
A Senate subcommittee will send out 51 subpoenas Friday for information about the company's collapse.
The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will be seeking documents back to 1991.
No names of those recieving subpoenas are being released but it is known Enron's Chairman and CEO Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeff Skilling are on the list.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
I disagree. It'll run until the House commences it's own "investigation."
Way too much dirty Rat laundry over on the House side.
Unless of course it involves: an intern, a dead intern, a missing intern, a President, lying under oath, etc etc etc. Those seem to fall below the radar screen or are simply "screamed" away. :-)
Tis amazing, indeed. Daschle, take note!
It is a spectacular story in terms of a business and management failure and fraudulent financial reporting. I have yet to see the connection with illegality from within the Bush Administration.
Enron is a large energy trading corporation based in Texas. It recently and suddenly went bankrupt, losing billions of dollars. I don't understand the details of accounting, but their accouting firm Arthur Anderson basically cooked the books and didn't realize the company was going under until it was too late.
What this has to do with Bush/Republicans:
Phil Gramm's Wife is (was) on the Board or Directors at Enron.
Being a Texas based company, Enron had a lot of contact with George Bush Jr. (and Sr.), and Dick Cheney. They are all in the oil (energy) business.
(My opinion)...
It is very probable that people at Enron and Anderson commited crimes and should be investigated. It is also possible that Bush or Cheney are somehow involved and they should come clean right away, which I think they are doing.
It was Bush's deregulation drive in Texas that made it possible for Enron to exist and make billions price gouging, totally without government oversight. It was Bush's FERC (with its Ken Lay hand-picked chair) that stood idly by last spring while big energy companies raised the price of electricity in California a thousand-fold. You think investigators aren't going to revisit that phony 'energy crisis'? It was Ken Lay and his cronies who wrote the Bush energy plan, hoping to be allowed to continue their highway robbery on a national if not global scale. Lawsuits have already been filed to get the records of that highly secretive little government-corporate cabal. If you don't want to hear about what sort of slimy incest has been going on between this administration and its big-money greedhead contributors, I suggest you put your hands over your ears and sing 'tra-la-la' for the next year or so, because we've just got started.
Rubin and Clinton bailed out Long Term Capital Management (a brokerage) with government (taxpayer) money. Had LTCM gone done (as Enron has) then a number of other brokerages would have suffered large losses from their business with LTCM. One of those was Goldman Sachs. Surprise, surprise, Mr. Rubin was a former partner in Goldman Sachs. Saving LTCM with taxpayer money saved Mr. Rubin's former partners from eating millions in losses. Mr. Rubin went back to Goldman Sachs when his days with Clinton were done.
Fast forward. Mr. Bush's administration did not lift a pinky for Enron. Enron (Kenneth Lay) contacted Administration officials three times in the week before Enron declared bankruptcy. Obviously, he hoped for something that would forstall the collapse. He got nothing. And Enron filed for bankruptcy the following week.
Had Bush bailed out Enron, like Clinton did LTCM, then the Democrats would have raised a scandal to high heaven -- for cronyism and insider-dealing writ large. But all those 401k's would have survived. Since Bush did nothing the Democrats now raise scandal because there are "oilmen" in the White House and Enron is an energy company. And Bush has actually even talked personally with Kenneth Lay when he was Governor of Texas (gasp!).
Essentially, the Democrat position is if you did nothing you are guilty of scandal and if you did something you are also guilty of scandal. You are guilty because of who you are. And you are guilty because you haven't lived your entire life sucking off the government teat.
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