Posted on 07/11/2002 2:30:18 AM PDT by kattracks
WASHINGTONThe broker who handled the controversial sale of President Bush's energy stock in 1990 said yesterday that he suggested the deal to Bush, but the future President hesitated because he wanted to make sure the sale was allowed.
"There isn't a person of any more integrity that I've talked to in my life. He was a straight shooter," retired broker Ralph Smith told the Daily News in a telephone interview from his Los Angeles home.
He blamed renewed questioning of Bush's Harken Energy stock trade on "Clintonites" and called Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt — both Democrats — "a couple of rats."
Smith said the trade came about because he called Bush on behalf of an "institution" that wanted to buy Harken Energy stock after other Harken directors said they did not want to sell. Bush also was a member of company's board.
At first, Smith said Bush told him "he didn't know if he could sell, and to check back."
"I checked with the [Harken] lawyers to make sure he could sell. ... They said that he could," he said. The former broker said it was "implicit" in later conversations that Bush also had sought legal advice.
Smith said he called again a couple of weeks later, and "then he said he would be interested in selling. [Bush] decided on the amount," and in June 1990 sold 212,140 shares for $835,807.
Before the deal went through, Smith said, Harken's lawyers wrote "a letter to the transfer agent ... [assuring him] there was no insider information available that wasn't available to the public. That's why he was allowed to sell."
Democrats have suggested Bush — who has decried greed and fraud that has hurt investors — may have been involved in insider trading because shortly after the sale, Harken stock fell. Bush also failed to file necessary paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission for eight months.
Smith said he was interviewed about the deal by two lawyers from the SEC — the only time in his 25-year career that a trade he made resulted in such a probe.
Denies Political Link
He also rejected the whispers that some fat cat wanted to buy stock from Bush, whose father was then President, to curry favor with the White House.
"There wasn't anything political involved in any way, shape or form. ... Buyer didn't know who the seller is. Seller didn't know who the buyer is," Smith said. "I didn't divulge."
"The Democrats are trying to make political hay [and] looking for something to hang their hat on that's detrimental to the President — and there's nothing here," Smith said.
He refused to name the institutional investor that bought Bush's stock. "That's what everybody wants to know," he said.
As Smith defended Bush, a watchdog group slapped Vice President Cheney with a suit charging that he masterminded fraudulent, stock-boosting accounting shenanigans when he was CEO of Halliburton.
Judicial Watch also filed against the energy company Cheney headed from 1995 until August 2000.
Halliburton already is under investigation by the SEC for an income-booking policy adopted under Cheney in 1998.
Judicial Watch filed numerous suits against the Clinton administration, forcing disclosure of reams of embarrassing documents. This year, it won court-ordered disclosure of records of an energy policy task force that Cheney headed — and had fought to keep secret.
Cheney spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise said, "I'm referring all calls over to Halliburton."
"You're asking me a question about Halliburton. It's not a White House issue," she said. She added that the SEC had not contacted Cheney in its investigation.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said, "The suit is without merit."
I think GWB is a man of great character and don't believe he's done anything wrong here (unlike Hillary and the cattle futures), but something doesn't add up.
First, I read GWB was looking to sell his stock to raise cash to buy the Texas Rangers. Then I see somebody approached him to buy his shares after others wouldn't sell. Seems too far fetched to me.
Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com
As a broker, it makes all the sense in the world to me.
Ping Ladies. I'm so glad this man came forth. :)
Love it. I hope the word gets out more and more- and the part about "a couple of rats"--classic!!!
Also, the guy who did the investigation on the SEC and wrote the ruling was a democrat appointee.
This is a big fat smear campaign by the Clintonistas, as this broker has said. I hope they are hoist on their own petard.
Was that actually the sequence of events?
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