This deserves a BUMP from the King of Ping!
This coincidence of the donation with the Clinton administration coming though in helping Enron get the project (one that helped them go down the tubes) has been talked about recently. I heard mention of it on a couple radio shows.
So here are the specifics for any doubting Thomases. It's from Time Magazine, August of 97. I couldn't get the original Time article.
See also, How Washington Inc. Makes a Sale - Clinton Adminstration, Enron ~ for a 1995 article showing how intricately and intimately involved Enron and the Clinton administration were in getting this Indian deal.
The Scoop
The White House: That Invisible Mack Sure Can Leave His Mark By Michael Weisskopf/Washington
(TIME, September 1) -- For a man who had supposedly vanished from the corridors of power, MACK MCLARTY was the man to see in 1996. BILL CLINTON's former chief of staff, now a White House counselor tucked away in the basement, provided assistance to businessmen who ponied up $1.5 million for the Democrats in the last election. On Nov. 22, 1995, for example, Clinton scrawled an FYI note to McLarty, enclosing a newspaper article on Enron Corp. and the vicissitudes of its $3 billion power-plant project in India. McLarty then reached out to Enron's chairman, KEN LAY, and over the next nine months closely monitored the project with the U.S. ambassador to New Delhi, keeping Lay informed of the Administration's efforts, according to White House documents reviewed by TIME. In June 1996, four days before India granted final approval to Enron's project, Lay's company gave $100,000 to the President's party. Enron denies that its gift was repayment for Clinton's attention, and White House special counsel LANNY DAVIS says McLarty acted out of concern for a major U.S. investment overseas.
Nevertheless, there does seem to be a McLarty pattern. At Clinton's request, he met with international oil consultant ROGER TAMRAZ and asked the Energy Department if the Administration could not be more supportive of his Caspian Sea pipeline proposal (Tamraz' contribution: $200,000). It was McLarty who directed a White House lawyer to query the Justice Department about a case protested by VANCE OPPERMAN, head of a legal publishing house (contribution: $350,000). The counselor arranged a White House meeting for Miami computer executive MARK JIMENEZ to discuss political unrest in an important Latin American market (contribution: $325,000). And last week the Washington Post reported that McLarty helped get a Clinton audience for Federal Express chairman FRED SMITH and his concerns about Japanese trade practices. Contribution: $525,000. Davis says McLarty acted "appropriately" in every case.
link (www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/08/25/time/notebook.html)
This deserves a BUMP from the King of Ping!