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Perot Systems did make sales pitches to Reliant and other energy companies for software that would help them maneuver through energy markets, Perot said. But the information the company detailed in its presentations was already available, he said.

Company officials said there was little interest in the information. The chief financial officer said Perot Systems earned just $11,000 in consulting fees from Reliant and never got far enough to make software that might have helped Reliant operate in California.

The company said it did not know whether it made a similar marketing presentation to Enron but added that it performed only $3,000 worth of computer services work in 1994 for the now-bankrupt energy company.

Perot Systems also filed several letters and memos with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The documents detail a conversation between Jeffrey Tranen, then chief executive of the California ISO, and Ronald Nash, then a vice president of Perot Systems, about potential conflict-of-interest violations in Perot Systems' sales pitches to energy companies.

In a 1997 letter, Tranen accuses Perot Systems of violating its conflict-of-interest agreement with the ISO. But a later letter suggests that the two companies met and resolved the issue, partially by requiring Perot Systems to make sure that the energy companies understood it was not suggesting ways they could manipulate the market. Dunn said late Thursday that he had not seen the letters.

Perot said he has promised both Dunn and Lockyer that the company will cooperate fully with their investigations.

Stephen McClellan, a Merrill Lynch analyst who has known Perot for 30 years, said the charges against Perot's company were overblown, citing the small amount of revenue it says it earned from energy consulting.

"They're just the ultimate in straight-arrow, Boy Scout-type business practices," McClellan said. "It just doesn't seem there is . . . a smoking gun or red flag."

A few years ago, most of us on Free Republic thought we had the totality of the Clinton corruption picture painted. Now, as we step back and take another at that picture look in light of the recent events and connect the dots, it just gets frightening. When you consider the board room connections of Robert Rubin, the lax attitude of the SEC during the Clinton Administration and remember that the Stock Market was the measure by which Clinton told us we were doing well... We knew that Clinton's Department of Labor had changed the way the unemployment figures were computed as was the method of computing inflation. At least the Stock Market was in good shape. Well, it just appears that the 8 years of Clinton were just one big lie.

Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. I shutter to think what the harvest of the seeds sown by Clinton and Co. will eventually bring.