Posted on 01/11/2002 4:26:46 PM PST by 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.
Dear Sirs:
I am responding to your article by Ben Fenton entitled "Conservatives turn on Bush over Enron" Speaking as an American conservative, I wish to inform you that Larry Klayman does NOT speak for most conservatives in the United States, but only for a few misguided souls. He has made a habit of issuing press releases and bloviations about everything President Bush does, including a press release criticizing Mrs. Bush for being polite and having tea with Mrs. Clinton during the transition.
I suggest that you charge Mr. Fenton with doing his research a little more diligently. I also suggest that if Mr. Klayman were interested in the truth, he would be investigating the numerous and highly suspicious contacts between the CEO of Enron and former President Clinton, as well as the Prime Minister of India, former Treasury Secretary Rubin, and assorted elected officials of BOTH parties.
But since Mr. Klayman is only interested in attacking the President, I must assume that he has surreptitiously switched parties. When he issues a press release criticizing the numerous Democrats who have also received Enron money for their campaigns, I might pay some attention to him.
Meanwhile, I continue to support President Bush, who is doing a fine job and is an honest man.
At any rate, please tell Mr. Fenton to interview people in Washington who don't crank out press releases at the drop of a hat. I know it makes his work a little more difficult, but after all, isin't that why you pay him?
Sincerely yours,
(My real name)
By the time the call was made, the money was GONE.
And my husband said the SAME thing......they know there's nothing there, so now they are going to change tactics.
And Lieberman was SO incensed. Geez.
It would make me SO happy if there were a few letters in that London paper embarassing The Grand Klayman.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this "idea" is utter rubbish. After all, since Enron has collapsed the Dow has been remarkably resilient.
Agreed.
Unfortunately, it took me a while to realize it. :(
That's called bait and switch.
First you say "There is a CNN story." Then it turns out that there is no CNN story, just a rumor, but in the meantime, here's a story that substantiates exactly nothing of what I've been saying...
There is a rumor that of the billions sucked out of Enron, about $20 billion worth multiplied through derivatives to approximately $600 billion, may have been used to prop up the stock market at key moments in late September and early October 2001.This "rumor" is not from CNN, it's from Damon Vickers, whom I have not heard of. He does not source his information. In summary, Mr. Vickers is saying that Enron cooked the books to make $20 billion look like $600 billion to prop up the market and that the Government looked the other way.
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