Crooks in the White House

This is exciting. Will Dick Cheney keel over from his fifth heart attack before he becomes the first veep since Spiro Agnew to resign in the face of charges of financial crookery? Or will Bush fire him to divert attention from his own scummy past? n Over the weekend President Dumbo poked his head above the rubble of the WorldCom scandal and made a stand: "No violation of the public’s trust will be tolerated... Executives who commit fraud will face financial penalties and, when they are guilty of criminal wrongdoing, they will face jail time."

Sunday morning brought more ringing pledges to protect the public weal: "If anybody violates the law, we go after them," SEC chairman Harvey Pitt told Sam Donaldson on ABC’s This Week. In an earlier incarnation Pitt was one of the guys who successfully lobbied the SEC to make it easier for Arthur Andersen and the other big accounting firms to cook the books on behalf of Enron, MCI/WorldCom and others. Bush, flush with campaign contributions from Enron and MCI/WorldCom ($100,000 last summer), duly signaled his gratitude by putting Pitt in charge of the SEC, where he put the agency in snooze mode amid a ripening cloud of scandal involving the biggest names in corporate America.

But even Pitt couldn’t choke off the investigation into Halliburton, one of the largest oil service companies in the world, headed until July 2000 by Cheney, who was the company’s CEO. The SEC is probing whether Halliburton reported more than $100 million of disputed costs on big oil contracts as revenues so that it could prop up its profits while negotiating a merger with a rival. These accounting shenanigans took place in 1998 on Cheney’s watch, and yes, the accounting firm was Arthur Andersen. Noting Bush’s promise that CEOs who have mismanaged their companies in some fraudulent way will "have to pay," Donaldson asked Pitt, "Will that be the case in Halliburton if you find wrongdoing under Mr. Cheney’s reign?" Quivering with integrity, Pitt bravely declared, "I head an independent regulatory agency. We don’t give anyone a pass."

What else could he say? Up till now the Halliburton scandal has been rumbling along, just under the radar. But now it’s nearing Critical Mass. It may not be long, too, before Dick Cheney announces that on doctor’s orders, and the better to deal with these outrageous accusations of chicanery, he’s stepping down, which is–if you believe friends of Tom Ridge in Philadelphia–what Cheney was planning to do before 9/11, making way for the former Pennsylvania governor.

Of course, anyone with a memory longer than the day before yesterday would have doubled over with laughter at the spectacle of Bush calling for jail time for corporate crooks. Remember Spectrum? Back in 1986 George W. Bush’s oil company, Spectrum, was about to go belly up, until kind friends folded it into Harken Energy. Various accounts, including the Daily Enron site (www.dailyenron.com), narrate that, from being on the threshold of the debtors’ prison, Bush suddenly had $500,000 worth of Harken stock, an $80,000-a-year salary and a stock option arrangement that allowed him to buy Harken stock at 40 percent below market value. Bush made more than a million off Harken, even though the company itself lost a ton of money.

Sound familiar? Here’s more, culled from the Daily Enron site. Bush also borrowed $180,375 from the company–a loan that was later "forgiven," in accordance with Christ’s instructions on the subject of sinners. (In 1989 and 1990 alone–according to the company’s Securities and Exchange Commission filing–Harken’s board "forgave" $341,000 in loans to its executives.)

Sure, this is old stuff, just like Whitewater. Now it’s spring 1990. Iraq is menacing Kuwait and thereby casting a shadow over Harken Energy’s only pending contract, a drilling project in Bahrain. Harken’s Smith Barney financial advisers have just issued a bleak assessment of the company’s position and future. Harken sets up a "restructuring board" and Bush is on it. In June 1990, claiming ignorance of Harken’s desperate plight and the Smith Barney report, Bush sells his 212,140 shares of Harken Energy, banking $848,560.

The sale falls under the SEC’s insider stock sale rule requiring almost immediate formal notice, but Bush does not report the sale until seven months later. At the time the SEC is headed by George H.W. Bush’s appointee, Richard Breeden. W sold his Harken stock less than 30 days after his father’s national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, sent the President a secret memo warning that hostilities between Iraq and Kuwait were likely.

As Daily Enron asks, "Did dad share this information with his son? If so, W. Bush traded on ‘non-public’ information of an extraordinary nature indeed."

Sure enough, two months after W made his killing, the shit hit the fan in the Gulf, and Harken’s shares went south, losing 25 percent of their value the day Saddam sent his troops into Kuwait. If Bush hadn’t bailed out he’d have lost nearly $250,000. And they talk about this man restoring "trust" in the White House?

That vapid reporter needs some schooling in history. Even I know that the accounting industry paid out big claims in securities lawsuits in the early '90s. They might have done the same previous to that decade, but I don't know for certain. But as to the early '90s -- directly under clintoon's watch -- I can attest firsthand that some of the then Big Six accounting firms (Ernst & Young for one) definitely paid out settlements, while admitting no guilt of course! And under clintoon -- and even congress pre-1995 when the GOP did not have the majority -- much direct lobbying and campaign coffer stuffing was done to get the powers that be to relax the third-party securities lawsuits that targeted the big accounting firms. I get a laugh when I see some of the democrats speaking pointedly against the accounting scandals now (I believe Billy Tauzin is one example), remembering how eager they were to help the accounting profession back then. Republicans helped as well, I should add. There is nothing wrong with helping a profession and I am not saying that at all. It is just that the dems are always two-faced and deceitful, whereas the GOP is straightforward. In other words, the cowardly dems will help allright but bail immediately in a very public way if the sh_t hits the fan. The GOP sticks to its guns and if it sees it is wrong, it admits it. Most importantly, the GOP doesn't choose its friends by sticking its hand up to the prevailing winds first.

Crooks in the White House?

The Clinton Crime List

Lying Under Oath as President - 2 times Lying Under Oath as Governor - 5 times Lying Under Oath as Attorney General Lying Under Oath in a Deposition Lying Under Oath to a Grand Jury Lying Under Oath as a Lawyer Abuse of Power Obstruction of Justice Treason Sedition Corruption Coercion Graft Bribe Solicitation Taking Bribes Bribery of Cabinent Members Bribery of State Officials Commercial Bribery Commercial Bribery Recieving Illegal Gift-Taking Falsifying Business Records Misapplication of Property Criminal Use of a Computer Misuse of Franking Privelege Recieving Dual Compensation Recieving Unlawful Gratuities Malfeasance of Office Perjury Subornation of Perjury Perjury by Inconsistent Statements Criminal Trespass Witness Intimidation Witness Tampering Jury Tampering Tampering With Physical Evidence Tampering With Public Records Ethics Violations Intentional Interference in the Administration of Justice Refusing to Assist a Judicial Officer Hindering Prosecution in the First Degree Hindering Prosecution in the Second Degree Unlawful Contact in the First Degree Misrepresentation Civil Contempt of Court Criminal Contempt of Court Contempt of Congress Contempt of the American People Deception False Information or Report False Accusation False Testimony Factually False Testimony False Swearing Unsworn Falsification Misappropriating Funds Misconduct Marital Misconduct Serious Misconduct Professional Misconduct Official Misconduct Notorious Misconduct Misconduct Involving a Controlled Substance Obstruction of the Judicial Process Misuse of Confidential Information Interference With Official Proceedings Recklessness Grand Larceny Extortion Embezzlement Vandalism Blackmail Cruelty to Animals Obstruction of Highways Substance Abuse Evidence Suppression Illegal Foriegn Campaign Funding Failure to Request a Criminal History for Employees Aiding and Abetting Espionage Aiding and Abetting Foriegn Dictators Aiding and Abetting Arsonists Aiding and Abetting Drug Traffic Aiding and Abetting Organized Crime Aiding and Abetting Terrorism Aiding and Abetting a Known Felon Aiding and Abetting Terrorists and Terrorist Organizations Terroristic Threatening Providing Material Support to Terrorists Engaging in Transactions with Terrorists Improper Exports of Sensitve Technology Attempted Intimidation of Prosecutors Failure to Declare Income Failure to Investigate Drug Trafficking Scheme to Defraud Real Estate Fraud Voter Fraud Mail Fraud Wire Fraud Paternity Fraud Interstate Transportation to Defraud Destruction of Business Records with Intent to Defraud Criminalizing Frauds on Financial Institutions Use of State Police for Personal Purposes Illegal Loan Extraction False Reports by Medical Examiners and Others Investigating Suspicious Deaths Improper Futures Trading Illegal Use of the Executive Branch Character Defamation Destruction of Evidence Political Espionage Money Laundering Criminal Negligence Possesion of False Papers False Acknowledgment False Declaration Before a Court Wrongful Handling of Public Documents Concealing or Covering Up of Material Fact Misprison of Felony Criminal Deception Disclosure of Confidential Information Failure to Account for Public Money Recieving or Concealing Stolen Goverment Property Failure to Deposit Federal Monies Wrongful Solicitation of Embezzlement or Gifts Use of a Public Building to Solicit Political Funds Accepting Fee for Federal Employment Offering to Procure an Appointive Public Office Taking Illegal Kickbacks Racketeering Investing Racketeering Income RICO Conspiracy Conspiracy Conspiracy to Conceal Conspiracy to Murder Conspiracy to Engage in Racketeering Conspiracy to Defraud the Federal Government Wrongful Destruction of War Records Malicious Injury to Property Acquiring an Enterprise Through Racketeering Interstate Transportation of Stolen Property Offering Gratuities or Graft to a Public Official Soliciting or Accepting Illegal Gratuities Offering Gratuities to a Witness Seeking or Accepting Illegal Compensation Influencing or Injuring Officers, Jurors or Witnesses Obstructing Agency Proceedings Obstructing Criminal Investigations Threatening Victims, Witnesses or Informants Harassing Victims, Witnesses or Informants Retaliating Against Victims, Witnesses or Informants Falsely Making or Forging a Public Record Falsely Making or Forging a Document Uttering or Publishing a False Public Record Transmitting a False Record to the United States Misuse of Government Files Desecration of Federal Ethics Laws Judicial Intimidation Conflict of Interests Illegal Campaign Activity Misuse of Corporate Assets Ordering Politically Motivated Audits Ordering Politically Motivated Investigations Timing of War Influenced by Political Considerations Foreign Influence Peddling Regular Influence Peddling Providing False and Misleading Testimony Misapplying Funds Criminal Violation of the Privacy Act Evisceration of the Right to Habeas Corpus Misuse of Taxpayer Funds Interfering with a Court Order Theft of Government Property Abuse of Taxpayer Financed Travel Anti-American Espionage Jeopardizing National Security Murder by Accessory by Witness Tampering Murder by Accessory by Forgery Solicitation to commit murder by accessory Accessory to Multiple Deaths Accessory to Murder in the Second Degree Accessory to Aggravated Murder Accessory to Felony Murder Accessory to Criminal Libel Accessory to Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution Accessory to Arson Accessory to Criminal Negligent Burning Accessories After the Fact Accessory to Abduction Accessory to Causing Mental Harm to a Child Custodial Interference in the First Degree Child Endangerment Cruelty to Persons Sexual Harassment Indecent Exposure in the Second Degree Indecent Assault Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress Malicious Wounding False Imprisonment Sexual Abuse of Employees Lewd and Lascivious Conduct Exchange of Promotions or Benefits for Sexual Favors First Degree Sexual Assault Second Degree Sexual Assault Third Degree Sexual Assault Fourth Degree Sexual Assault Unlawful Carnal Knowledge Statutory Rape Sexual Battery Intent to Rape Suspicion of Rape Rape Forcible Rape Oral Copulation Intent to Commit Sexual Assault Misdemeanor Sexual Assault Sexual Misconduct in the First Degree Criminal Sexual Conduct by Force and Coercion Unlawful Sexual Contact Unlawful Sexual Activity with a Minor Forcible Touching Consensual Digital Penetration Lewd Proposal Sexual Battery Penetration by a Foriegn Object Failure to Register as a Sexual Offender Deriliction of Duty Corrupting Public Discourse Contributing to the Delinquincy of a Minor Unfit to hold a law license Conduct Unbecoming a President Impersonating a Public Servant Squandering the Public Trust

That's 234 crimes, that we know of.

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