Posted on 08/07/2002 6:26:58 PM PDT by kattracks
WASHINGTON, Aug 07, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- A Republican lawmaker is asking the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin's request last year that the Bush administration intervene to help now-bankrupt Enron Corp.
Rep. Mark Foley of Florida, one of the House Republican leaders, is sending a letter Thursday to SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt asking for an investigation.
Rubin, who left the Clinton administration in mid-1999, is chairman of the executive committee of Citigroup, one of the banks that lent hundreds of millions of dollars to Enron. As Enron spiraled toward collapse, Rubin called the Treasury Department's undersecretary for domestic finance, Peter Fisher, last Nov. 8 to seek his intervention on Enron's behalf. At the time, Wall Street credit-rating agencies were poised to downgrade their assessment of the financial status of Houston-based Enron.
The Treasury Department did not intervene.
A number of Enron officials were making calls to various administration officials at that time seeking help for the Houston-based company.
"Apart from the questionable propriety of a former Treasury secretary trying to solicit financial favors from former colleagues at a department he once led, I would ask that you investigate all (Enron stock) trades submitted by Citigroup and/or its subsidiaries and their clients in the two weeks preceding Mr. Rubin's call to Mr. Fisher as well as the two weeks following the call," Foley told Pitt in the letter.
"Credit reports are viewed by investors in order to determine the financial soundness of a company before investing capital in that company's equity stock," Foley wrote. "It is imperative that we know what the consequences were on stock actions by Mr. Rubin's apparent attempt at interfering on behalf of Enron - a company that Citigroup had, and has, a financial interest in."
On Nov. 28, Moody's Investors Service downgraded Enron's bonds to junk status. Enron filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors four days later.
SEC spokesmen couldn't immediately be reached for comment Wednesday night.
A Rubin spokesman has said he "had prefaced the call (to Fisher) by saying, 'This may not be the best idea,' and in the end agreed with Fisher that it wasn't a good idea."
Copyright 2002 Associated Press, All rights reserved
bump
The dems are wagging the dog with all this Martha Stewart nonsense.
"JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN (D-CT)
Top Contributors
#1 Citigroup, Inc. $59,296"
Since LIEberman's bought&paidfer by Rubin's new place of employment, going straight to the Securities and Exchange Commission seems like a pretty good strategy fer getting to the Truth about Rubin's corruption. If the EX-Head of the Dept. of the Treasury is soooo willing to manipulate the stock market while out of office, you gotta wonder what he did while Clinton was in office to contribute to the Irrational Exuberance in the Market that led to the present Bear Market?!
FReegards...MUD
Exactly...MUD
Most "little" people go to jail for this - no?
Something Rubin DOESN'T know? Please, tell us more...
(Rubin is goin' to jail baybee - yeah!)
clinton knew that there was corruption in corporate america. he also knew that if he did something about it then the stock market would make a significant correction. when people see their portfolio values disappear, they are less willing to be taxed and in fact cap gains tax disappear. both of the latter dry up funds for the socialist society that the dems want.
and i did not even mention the impact it would have had on the 2000 elections.
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