Conservatives (Judicial Watch) turn on Bush over Enron

The Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | 01/12/2002 | Ben Fenton

[Pokey78]

THE White House response to the collapse of Enron, a Texas-based energy company with strong links to the Bush administration, has "shades of Bill Clinton", a conservative watchdog said yesterday.

Judicial Watch, a legal group that pressed Mr Clinton in the latter years of his presidency by investigating every aspect of his personal and professional life, called for a special counsel to investigate the Enron case.

Tom Fitton, the group's president, said: "The White House has a nice little scandal on its hands with Enron and they have only themselves to blame. Their reaction certainly has shades of Bill Clinton." The criticism is an indication of the potential risks of the Enron controversy.

Judicial Watch would normally support a conservative president such as Mr Bush. Enron applied for bankruptcy protection last November after overstating its profits by more than £400 million by hiding huge debts in the accounts of subsidiaries.

Its board is being investigated over allegations that 29 current or former members sold their shares for a total of £785 million in the months before the collapse. Thousands lost jobs and money when the Enron share price collapsed from almost £65 to only a few pence in less than a year.

The Houston-based company has close links to the Bush White House. Kenneth Lay, its chairman, is a friend of both President Bush and his father and was one of the principal fundraisers for the Bush-Cheney election campaign in 1999-2000.

Dick Cheney, the vice-president, had close contacts with Mr Lay when Halliburton, another Houston-based energy company of which he was formerly chief executive, built a baseball stadium for Enron.

Two senior members of the administration, Larry Lindsey, the President's chief economic adviser, and Robert Zoellick, the US trade representative, worked as consultants with Enron before Mr Bush recruited them.

The White House said on Thursday that Mr Lay called on Paul O'Neill, the treasury secretary, and Don Evans, the commerce secretary, to help the company in the days before it collapsed, but added that they had turned him down, despite his close links to the president and his party.

But Mr Fitton yesterday called on the White House to be more open. "Conservatives are very uncomfortable about the relations between the Bush White House and Enron and I doubt you will see many coming forward to defend the conduct, at least so far."

He was particularly critical of Mr Cheney's efforts to prevent the release of the minutes of meetings he and his staff held with Mr Lay and other Enron executives in the process of formulating the administration's energy policy.

[Howlin]

Partisan is like the Dems when Clinton is up to his ears in filth and they aren't aware anything is amiss. Perhaps Bush and Ashcroft, as well as many congressmen, are in that boat now, and perhaps Republicans aren't willing to investigate the possibility that this is serious

Care to back that up? What PROOF do you have of that accusation?

[BUSHdude2000]

The Mission Statement from Judicial Watch's website:

Judicial Watch, Inc. was established in 1994 to serve as an ethical and legal "watchdog" over our government, legal, and judicial systems to promote a return to ethics and morality in our nation's public life.

As a non-partisan, non-profit foundation based in Washington, D.C., and with offices throughout the country, Judicial Watch relies on supporters, like yourself, to help us root out corruption in our government and to make sure offenders are brought to justice.

I don't see anything about only watching the demonrats and letting Republicans slide. Also, if you notice the last part about rooting out corruption, if I'm not mistaken, that's the objective of FR on the homepage.

[A Citizen Reporter]

"Where do we put our foot down, both parties, and say "You can't get away with this anymore!"?

Let me see, where have I heard that rhetoric before? Oh yeah, John McCain!

[Miss Marple]

Ah, but why isn't he going after Senator Daschle? Or Senator Lieberman? Or multitudes of congressmen from Jesse Jackson, Jr. to David Bonior? Why only President Bush? I thought he was supposed to look for GOVERNMENT corruption, not do PRESIDENTIAL nit-picking. Exactly why are we supposed to be upset about this Enron thing?

Is it because President Bush took donations from Enron? As has been demonstrated, they gave a lot of money on both sides of the aisle.

Is it because Enron bought influence? Some influence...they wound up bankrupt.

Is it because the employees lost money in the 401K while the officers got to sell their stock? This apparently is legal, although reprehensible. It is not President Bush's fault, and O'Neill said they are going to be looking into changing the laws on 401K plans.

Now, if all the hot shot Wall Street people thought this was a good company, and apparently there were a lot who did, how is it that President Bush, who has been running a war and doesn't have time to look at individual stock reports, was supposed to KNOW that they were in trouble?

Oh...when O'Neill got the call? By then the money was gone.

So WHAT is Klayman investigating? Please explain, and it cannot be that Lay was a friend. I have had friends in my life that did some crummy things. I didn't know what they were doing until it had happened, and of course, they aren't now my friends, but nonetheless, I did know them.

[Howlin]

Fine, tell Larry to take ALL the conservatives off his mailing list. Because he sure as hell isn't asking liberals for money.

[TLBSHOW]

Homelessness

lol My commie town wants to build one for almost 1 million dollars. To house up to 6 families. This is our personal war against a Hillary lovin democrat mayor.

[habs4ever]

Ah, well, don't take Enron's side just yet.They traded assets from private partnerships that were non arms length from the corporate structure...ie controlled by officers...and sold them to the parent, booked imaginary capital gains into the income statement, and then took those bookings to the banks and refinanced for more.OOPS!!Then to top it off, they issue a whole slew of puts against the bogus capital of Enron, putting it on the hook instead of the partnerships.Its a classic method to siphon funds from the larger entity...the one that can issue stock and and has lines of credit.It works as long as the stock doesn't tank and the company isn't "put" all those options.They rolled the dice, and lost.

[A Citizen Reporter]

You are exactly right. Then where in the above telegraph article does Tom Fitton point out that there might be complicity on the demonRATS side of the Enron story? Could you highlight that part for me? Where does he mention the Ken Lay/Ron Brown/Clinton connection? In fact, what facts DOES he bring to the article? Now we have documented it all right here on FR, in fact there is a whole thread that doug from Upland has running, sending it all to Waxman.

[desertcry]

larry klayman is all hot air. He made a lot of noise during the clinton scandals, but that was all, NOISE! Can anybody point to any convictions resulting from all the noise that Klayman made.

[Deb]

Remember the press's lack of curiosity during the Clinton years? Everything was so "complicated" and details were always so "murky". And, of course, nothing ever led back to Mr. and Mrs. Tubby. That to me was one of the most head-spinning differences between the way they treated Reagan and GHW Bush and the way they covered their guy.

Every thing any low-level, part-time government employee or personal friend did always was laid right at the door of the president. Reagan and Bush controlled and manipulated everything friends, family, the world. Clinton had control of nothing, not even his dick. A pertetual victim.

Claims of ignorance, stupidity and SNAFUs were everywhere and accepted immediately. Wow, what a difference a GOP president makes in the energy of the press. Helen Thomas is like a kitten with a ball of yarn.

[BUSHdude2000]

The Conservatives were lining up to give Klayman money when he was going after the liberals. Now with the shoe on the other foot, he's probably getting liberal money to go after Conservatives.

[Miss Marple]

Your comments are appreciated, because I heard someone explaining this the other day but I only got part of it. My hunch is that there were a lot of shady dealings, but that makes it a financial scandal, not a political one. If Lay did something illegal, I am sure he will be prosecuted.

But Larry Klayman will have not one thing to do with any of it.

[Howlin]

I don't see anything about only watching the demonrats and letting Republicans slide.

My dear child/person, Larry has quite simply CHANGED his "aim" since he's made so many conservatives mad and can't get money from them anymore.

See below:

Scaife's Money Aids Judicial Watch

By Brooks Jackson/CNN

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, June 10) -- Larry Klayman, leader of the group Judicial Watch, calls himself a conservative watchdog. He denies he is in it for the money and says he is just after the truth about the Clinton Administration.

"I take it to heart when I see the government not telling the truth, not doing the right thing and covering up," Klayman says.

Klayman subpoenaed Clinton fund-raiser John Huang in 1996. This year he forced former Clinton aide Harold Ickes to testify and got Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon to admit under oath he leaked damaging information about Clinton accuser Linda Tripp.

Tax records show Klayman's tax-exempt group, Judicial Watch, was just a shoestring operation in 1996, with total revenues of less than $68,000.

But now it comes out that Judicial Watch received $550,000 in 1997 from the Carthage Foundation, funded by Pittsburgh billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife.

Scaife is intensely conservative and intensely anti-Clinton. He gave $2.6 million to American Spectator magazine to dig up Clinton dirt, then cut off the money when it published a story he didn't like.

But Klayman says Scaife's money comes with no strings attached, and Scaife isn't paying them to beat up on President Bill Clinton.

"Absolutely not," Klayman said. "Our cases were filed long before we received any support from the Carthage Foundation."

Klayman has sued the Commerce Department, the Justice Department, the White House, the FBI and even Hillary Rodham Clinton.

He is a frequent guest and dependable Clinton-basher on CNN and other networks, including a network linked to the conservative Free Congress Foundation. Scaife gave it nearly $1.7 million last year.

Clinton allies were silent about the news that Scaife is financing Klayman. Some said they saw nothing wrong. Others suggested they want to avoid any more Klayman subpoenas.

[Torie]

I'll bet Enron will have done nothing wrong.

I doubt Enron told Anderson everything, or answered fully every question asked without intent to mislead. We shall see.

[SpringheelJack]

Yeah, that shift in tactics was a real prize in liberal flipflop. At one point in the program, Bill Press and Coelho were arguing from two completely opposing interpretations of the Enron disaster, but with one thing in common: Bush at fault.

That being said, the liberals cleaned the conservatives' clocks (Bob Novak and Cliff May) on Crossfire today. The White House needs to get some directions out to their friends and allies on how to respond to these accusations, so that conservative commentators can be more effective in pointing out all the holes in the Democrats' claims, as well as the hypocrisies of the Democrat accusers such as that of Tony Coelho (for instance, on another program on CNN, Robert Wexler and J.D. Hayworth were debating Enron, and Hayworth gained major points when he pointed out, to Wexler's chagrin, that the latter had accepted money from Enron in the past).

[aculeus]

Enron is now in bankruptcy. What did the White House do other than refuse to help when they called?

Answer: NADA.

Note to Larry: We've met. I've sent you money. Not any more ... idiot!

[Howlin]

No, we were more than willing to give him money when he had truth and facts on his side.

But now he is making lies up out of whole cloth. If and when there is ANY evidence against Bush and this administration, I will be the FIRST person to say heads should roll. However, I do think that Klayman should have SOME SHRED OF PROOF/EVIDENCE before he fires off press releases like this; I know it's EXTREMELY picky of me, but that's just the way I am; I happen to LIKE facts.

And Larry ain't got any.

And after four or five years or NEVER WINNING A CASE, most of us wised up.

[Miss Marple]

He is probably getting a LOT of money from certain quarters to go after President Bush. I would guess some of the $8 million dollar book advance a certain former First Lady got found it's way into JW's coffers, via an intermediary.

SO, why is he calling himself a conservative?

[Howlin]

Phone calls. It was those phone calls! Give 'em the chair!

[Howlin]

One other thing I saw today: film of last month's hearing on the Hill, with the CEO of Andersen saying that "Enron didn't show us everything."

That's going to be hard to reconcile with "We've burned it all," IMO........LOL.