This was sent by a friend. From SFGate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here:http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/10/25/EDG6PKE0BH1.DTL
(SF Chronicle)
Enron’s enablers go unpunished
Robert Scheer, Creators Syndicate, Inc.
NO, I’M NOT THRILLED about Jeffrey Skilling getting 24 years in prison for
his role in the Enron scandal. While he and fellow Enron head-honcho
Kenneth Lay were clearly guilty as charged, the handling of this case by
the Bush Justice Department is a functional coverup of the Bush family’s
role in enabling these crimes.
The thousands of Enron employees who lost their jobs, as well as $2
billion in pension money and $60 billion in share value, deserve better.
By focusing on narrowly drawn criminal charges and the public’s wrath on
Skilling and his late partner-in-crime — “Kenny Boy” Lay, as President
Bush referred to his one-time chief campaign benefactor — the culpability
of the president’s family in this sordid saga is being whitewashed.
How convenient to close the book without considering the ties between the
Enron perps and those in two Bush presidencies whose actions enabled these
hustlers. The Enron crooks would never have been more than petty thieves
were it not for the political support they received from their fellow
Texas oil buddies. They knew that and they paid for it: Over the years,
Lay and Enron gave the Bush family’s politicians $3 million in
contributions, as well as lending the campaigning George W. a jet on at
least eight occasions.
They did so because, without the deregulation of the energy industry
pushed by the first President Bush, Enron would have remained a minor
company without the capacity to swindle. At the time, Lay wrote a column
supporting the elder Bush’s re-election by praising him as “the energy
president” because “just six months after George Bush became president, he
directed … the most ambitious and sweeping energy plan ever proposed.”
Specifically, Enron benefited mightily from a key ruling by Wendy Gramm,
head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission under George H.W. Bush,
permitting Enron to trade in highly profitable energy derivatives. A mere
five weeks after rendering that ruling, Gramm, the wife of then-U.S. Sen.
Phil Gramm, R-Texas, abruptly resigned to join the Enron board of
directors, where she served on the company’s now-infamous “see-no-evil”
audit committee. Secretary of State James Baker and Commerce Secretary
Robert Mosbacher also rushed to work for Enron after their White House
tenure.
Dubya first got involved with Enron’s Lay when they both worked on his
daddy’s campaign and the relationship flowered during his years as
governor of Texas. There is, in fact, a long paper trail of “Dear Ken” and
“Dear George” exchanges that have come to light, thanks to Freedom of
Information Act requests. The correspondence exposes the active support
given by Bush to Enron’s expansion into markets ranging from Uzbekistan to
Pennsylvania. As Lay wrote to Bush in a letter dated Oct. 7, 1997, “I very
much appreciated your call to Gov. Tom Ridge a few days ago. I am certain
that will have a positive impact on the way he and others view our
proposal.”
In payback for Bush’s support, Lay became a Bush “pioneer” fundraiser,
dumping in more than $2 million in contributions from himself and Enron
executive funds. Lay’s influence with Bush extended well into the first
year of the second Bush administration, when Bush stonewalled California
while it was being extorted through a manufactured “power crisis” by Enron
and other energy companies to buy energy at grossly inflated prices.
The Enron boss also became a principal architect of the new Bush energy
policy in the months before his downfall, completely undermining the
spirit of democracy. In fact, the public has still been denied access to
the six secret conversations Lay had with Vice President Dick Cheney when
the vice president was quarterbacking the Bush administration’s response
to the California energy crisis, which saw the prosperous state
preposterously hit by rolling blackouts. Lay provided Cheney with a key
memo opposing price caps that would have mightily aided California
consumers.
Lay also played a major role in the dismissal of Curtis Hebert Jr. as
Federal Energy Commission chairman. Hebert was too independent for Enron’s
taste, while his replacement was far more amenable to the company’s
agenda.
Without the specific energy policies pursued through two Bush
presidencies, Skilling and Lay would have remained two-bit Texas hustlers
going nowhere fast. But thanks to their presidential sponsors, who in turn
received lavish campaign contributions, the biggest corporate swindle in
U.S. history was allowed to unfold.
Why were the dots between the Enron swindlers and their government
sponsors never connected by a Bush Justice Department that seemed more
interested in containing the damage than exploring the true ramifications
of this case? Getting to the bottom of this story is one compelling reason
to hope that the Democrats gain control in this election of at least one
branch of Congress, thus permitting a serious investigation of the
political machinations behind the Enron swindle.
E-mail Robert Scheer at Rscheer@truthdig.com. ———————————————————————-
Copyright 2006 SF Chronicle