"President Bush’s explanation of his
relationship to Enron is at best a half truth. He
was in bed with Enron before he ever held a
political office….Enron’s ‘independent’ auditor and
‘outside’ law firm — whose own questionable actions
in the Enron debacle are being probed — gave a total of $560,385 to Bush’s gubernatorial and presidential campaigns."
2002.02.06
Andrew Wheat
tpj@tpj.org
http://www.tpj.org
Wheat is the research director for Texans for
Public Justice, a non-profit policy and research
organization which tracks the influence of money
in politics. Wheat said today:
"President Bush’s explanation of his
relationship to Enron is at best a half truth. He
was in bed with Enron before he ever held a
political office…. Although Enron is George W.
Bush’s No. 1 career donor, the president also is
heavily indebted to the professional firms that
aided and abetted the greatest bankruptcy and
shareholder meltdown in U.S. history.
Enron’s ‘independent’ auditor and ‘outside’ law
firm — whose own questionable actions in the
Enron debacle are being probed — gave a total of
$560,385 to Bush’s gubernatorial and presidential
campaigns. In addition, Arthur Andersen and Vinson
& Elkins accounted for four of Bush’s elite
‘Pioneer’ fundraisers who collectively moved at
least $400,000 more to Bush’s presidential
campaign; Enron Chair Ken Lay was another
Pioneer."
Rahul Mahajan
rahul@tao.ca
http://www.nowarcollective.com/enron.htm
Mahajan is a specialist on South and Central Asian
affairs. In an article published in the Texas
Observer in April 2001, Mahajan said:
"Enron also stands out for its skill in
co-opting politicians from all parts of the
spectrum to do its dirty work, and for its
willingness to grease the wheels of government
with liberal doses of campaign cash.
Perhaps most striking is the way it has grown out
of nothing, combining ultramodern Internet-fueled
growth with techniques rarely seen since the days
of the robber barons, when anyone sufficiently
ruthless and corrupt could create billions of
dollars in equity out of thin air."
P. Sainath
psainath@hotmail.com
http://www.saja.org/sainath.html
Sainath is an Indian journalist who has won many
awards, including Amnesty International’s Global
Human Rights Journalism Prize.
"The one formerly solvent and profit-making
state electricity board in India is running tens
of millions of dollars of losses after getting
into a deal with Enron," he said in a Jan.
24, 2001 news release from the Institute for
Public Accuracy.
Victoria Tauli-Corpuzv
Vickytcorpuz@aol.com
http://www.tebtebba.org
Tauli-Corpuz is the founder and executive director
of the Tebtebba Foundation — the Indigenous
Peoples’ International Center for Policy Research
and Education — in the Philippines. She said
today:
"Corruption and bad governance are usually
the main reasons cited by the Northern
governments, the World Bank, the IMF and even the
WTO on why aid programs fail and why there is too
much poverty in the [global] South. What is not
being said, however, is that corruption and bad
governance are equally applicable to them.
Enron is again a clear case of corruption and bad
governance not only within the corporation but
within the U.S. government. The behavior of Enron
in India since it signed a Power Purchase
Agreement with the Congress Party for a
740-megawatt power plant in l993 is an exhibition
of corruptive practices. What this tells us is
that there is a need for more democratic and
transparent global and national institutions which
will regulate the behavior of corporations to make
them more accountable."
For more information, contact at the Institute for
Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini 202.347.0020
David Zupan 541.484.9167
[ also see related items:
The Ten Worst Corporations of 2001
– http://www.theexperiment.org/articles.php?news_id=1628
Connect the Enron Dots to Bush
– http://www.theexperiment.org/articles.php?news_id=1597
Author: IPA
News Service: Institute for Public Accuracy
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