Issues....we NEED some steeekin' issues...is Bush 'an insider' an issue?????.....that's it....
Bush's an insider..... Bush was an insider......Bush was an insider ......
....c'mon people..... we, atDNCCBS know....Bush was an insider .....
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 doubt he does his own books, and accountants can mess you up very badly when they don't do what you pay them to do.
The scum bags need to get off his case on this. I know they go to bed at night dreaming of the day they can nail something on him, it won't happen, they need to get over themselves.
FACT - the sale was legal under the law.
FACT - the SEC investigated, found NO wrong doing.
FACT - the stock that President Bush sold dropped 40% of its value 5 months after President Bush sold it.
FACT - the stock TRIPLED it's original sale price (the price President Bush sold it for) 9 months after President Bush sold it.
FACT - all this information is in the SEC's investigative report!
The DummyRATS have no moral ground to stand on here. What President Bush did was perfectly legal and above board. What we have are a bunch of democRAT hypocrites saying Bush did something ILLEGAL when these SAME democRATS worked to pass Campaign Finance Reform, under the auspices of "pass this law, or I'll keep doing this! I'm doing it right now, until you pass this law" and then "Oh, by the way, the law takes effect in 2 years, so we can continue this activity until it becomes illegal."
The absolute HYPOCRISY of Democrats on this issue is fun to watch.
And you're just another Bush-basher who ignores the truth. You'd make a swell Democrat, if you're not one already.
Your agenda is pretty obvious.
Issues....we NEED some steeekin' issues...is Bush 'an insider' an issue?????.....that's it....
Bush's an insider..... Bush was an insider......Bush was an insider ......
....c'mon people..... we, atDNCCBS know....Bush was an insider .....
Bush is no saint but he's not the slime Clinton was (is) and demanding every scrap of paper from a 12-year-old, heavily investigated stock sale smacks of witch-hunting. If the broker told you who the buyer was, what then? This changes what? The sale was legal, no laws were broken and Bush acted ethically. What more do you want from him?
The casual dismissal of President Bush as just another politician is damning with faint praise and your pecking at this dead horse of a stock sale is very much in line with the Democrats campaign to smear Bush with anything they can find. No luck so far but they won't quit and they don't need any help from 'Bush voters' nattering about this legal, ethical sale of stock a dozen years ago.
Before you say it; yes, Bush is not above criticism, the law or ethics but no one ever said he was. If this stock sale had just recently come to light that would be a different story but it's been investigated and probed by not only the SEC but each one of his Democrat opponents every time he ran for office ('94, '98, 2000). If there was anything even slightly dubious about any aspect of the sale it would have been unearthed and trumpeted across the land by Gore in 2000 if not sooner by Texas Democrats.
There is nothing here. Democrat attempts to smear Bush are going on the assumption that since corporate scandals are in the news the Democrats can use that 'ol class envy to rile folks against 'big business' then - without a shred of evidence - call Bushs' legal, ethical stock trade in 1990 'suspicious' or 'questionable' (liberals love those murky terms) and declare that the President is 'just like the bad guys' and unable to 'lead' in cleaning up the corporate mess of cooked books and dishonest, corrupt CEO's.
Facts don't matter. Truth doesn't matter. To Daschel and company only making President Bush look dishonest matters and the lust for votes and power knows no bounds for these corrupt politicians that learned at the knee of the master of corruption, Bill Clinton. So the cry goes up that George W. Bush conducted a 'questionable' stock sale in 1990. "He's one of THEM" is the sneering accusation, truth be damned.
This won't wash with the American people as the facts belie the charge and Bush has shown himself to be a decent, honest man. Far from perfect of course but light-years from the corrupt Clinton and his henchmen in Congress now attempting to smear Bush yet again. You can claim to have voted for Bush and then join the Democrat chorus but you're howling in the wind here. Give it a rest.
The Clintons destroyed or hid relevant records and lied constantly about Whitewater. Bush has had everything about this stock sale investigated many times. His former broker doesn't want to say who bought the stock Bush sold. I don't see what's so ominous about this as Bush has given the SEC everything it wanted. They must know who bought the stock. If it was somehow tainted, this would have been raised by this late date.
This is just political nit-picking, looking for something to go "AH-HA"! over and attempting to paint Bush as 'just like Clinton' when the opposite is true and that's what makes Democrats squirm.
I see a skepticism on your part that is beyond reason in this case. Bush isn't Clinton, nothing was shredded or 'lost' and no one lied. There is nothing there and continual attempts to make it appear as if there is are wasted energy, unless you're a liberal Democrat with a anti-Bush virus in your veins. If not, this is a non-starter, no matter who bought the stock.
A few differences between the two cases. The US government didn't lose any money bailing out the broker or the person who bought the stock.
Bush didn't get anyone to take out an SBA loan to keep the broker or Harken afloat.
Bush didn't avoid paying taxes on a forgiven loan.
Laura didn't lie about doing legal work to keep any schemes afloat.
I could continue if you'd like. Now, tell me how they are similar.
Michael Medved is:
A) An Economist?
B) An expert on the stock market?, or
C) A movie critic with a (how does it stay on the air?) radio show?
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