Reuters
By John Whitesides
July 14, 2002 03:27 PM ET
Source
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt, under heavy fire as a wave of corporate scandals breaks, said on Sunday there was no need to release the files on a 1991 probe of President Bush's stock sales.
Appearing on two television talk shows to answer charges that he is too cozy with corporate America to effectively regulate it, Pitt vigorously defended his agency's performance and said he will not resign.
He accused Democrats of trying to score political points with calls for the release of the investigatory files on Bush's stock sales while he was a director of Texas-based Harken Energy Corp.
"Unless there's a reason to re-open ancient history, we should move on," Pitt said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
"Why can't we focus on WorldCom, on Enron, on Qwest, all these other companies where the American public is being injured? Why are we diverted for mere political gain?" he said, although he said he would release the files if Bush asked.
The SEC investigated Bush for being up to 34 weeks late in reporting stock sales worth more than $1 million but concluded he did not engage in illegal insider trading. Bush's father was president at the time.
"The matter is closed," Pitt said, but Democrats said Bush still needs to come clean about his past as a businessman.
"The only way to clear the air is full disclosure," Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, said on ABC's "This Week."
A bout of financial scandals have torpedoed investor confidence in publicly traded stocks and rocked financial markets, threatening to become a political liability for the president and Republicans heading into the November mid-term elections.
CENTER OF STORM
Pitt has been at the center of the Wall Street storm, with top lawmakers such as Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle and Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain calling for his resignation. Bush so far has backed Pitt.
"I have absolutely no intention of stepping down," Pitt said on CBS' "Face the Nation." He said the SEC was more aggressive now than it had ever been.
"Anybody who looks at what we've really done, what our record is, instead of these politically crass sound bites, will understand this is the most aggressive, most effective SEC that there has ever been in the 68 years of this agency," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Republican Rep. Billy Tauzin of Louisiana said Sunday that accounting irregularities at fallen telecommunications giant WorldCom Inc stretched back at least one year earlier than previously believed.
Internal WorldCom documents show the company's then-chief financial officer rebuffed complaints from at least two employees that it was artificially inflating profits as far back as April 2000, Tauzin said on ABC's "This Week."
Tauzin is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee looking into the WorldCom scandal.
Pitt said he supported the "thrust" of Democratic Sen. Paul Sarbanes' bill to create a tough, new oversight board for accountants and limits the consulting services accounting firms can provide their audit clients.
He also praised a more modest bill passed by the House in April that has been criticized as weak by some investor advocates.
Pitt, a former Wall Street lawyer with prominent clients including major accounting firms and corporations, finishes in August a one-year "cooling off period" in which he has recused himself from numerous cases involving former clients.
But he said he will "make a case-by-case decision" on whether to start participating. "If I think there is an appearance issue or some other problem, I may still recuse myself," he said.
He endorsed proposals to indict corporate chief executive officers whenever a corporation is indicted for a criminal matter under SEC jurisdiction.
"We're going after these people. I frankly think, every one of them who is responsible for any of these defaultations should do hard time for their hard crimes," Pitt said.
"The SEC fully looked into the matter, they looked at every aspect of it ... and the people who looked into it said they have no case,"
George W. Bush - July 8, 2002 - Source.
"How thorough the SEC inquiry was remains unclear. Jordan said Harken provided investigators with "thousands of pages" of documents, including the June 11 minutes and Faulkner's July 13 communique. Investigators interviewed Cummings, stockbroker Smith and a member of the Arthur Andersen auditing team, but they did not talk to Faulkner or any other officers or directors of Harken."
The Washington Post - Bush Name Helps Fuel Oil Dealings - By George Lardner Jr. and Lois Romano - Friday, July 30, 1999; Page A1.
- George W's daddy, George H.W. Bush was President.
- Richard C. Breeden - "who was SEC chairman under President Bush's father, former President George H.W. Bush"
- Richard C. Breeden - "Serving as 'Assistant' to the President for President George H.W. Bush"
- Ex-SEC chairman Richard Breeden named "WorldCom" monitor
- Robert Jordan, a founding partner of the Dallas law office of Baker Botts, represented Mr. Bush during a Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry into the allegations involving Mr. Bush's lucrative sale of stock in Harken, where he had been a director. Robert Jordan, is now ambassador Saudi Arabia.
- James R. Doty - "From May 1990 through December 1992, Mr. Doty was the General Counsel of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, Washington, D.C."
"As General Counsel, Mr. Doty was the chief legal officer of the Commission, responsible for advising the Commission and its staff with respect to interpretations involving questions of law, the conduct of administrative proceedings, the preparation of Commission comments to Congress on pending legislation and the drafting, in conjunction with the appropriate divisions and offices, of legislative proposals sponsored by the Commission." - James R. Doty - "who earlier represented Bush in his purchase of the Texas Rangers, made with the proceeds of his sale of Harken shares"
- James R. Doty was a law partner with Robert Jordan.
- Harvey L. Pitt - Former Arthur Andersen Attorney
Hi, my name is Harvey Pitt, and you'll have to excuse me, I'm a recovering Arthur Andersen(AA) Attorney.
"There is nothing rotten in the accounting profession."
Harvey Pitt, Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission - January, 2002 - SOURCE
Papers Offer Info on Bush Knowledge
After Stephens' news conference, all about golf, he openly expressed relief at surviving his minutes in front of the media. At the time, his uneasiness seemed unwarranted. But now it's clear that he had reason to be wary of questioning. |
And the Wall Street Journal has reported that Stephens' Arkansas-based investment bank played a critical role in fund raising for Harken Energy, a small Texas company whose board of directors includes George W. Bush, the president's son, and which won a potential billion-dollar contract to drill for oil in Bahrain.... |