Lay and Skilling in the Dock
By JASON LEOPOLD
For many people familiar with Enron's meteoric rise and sudden downfall four years ago, the high-flying energy company and the company's crooked "E" logo have come to represent corporate greed, corruption and excess at its worst.
But more important, Enron should be symbolic for something else: it was the first in a long list of corporate scandals involving the Bush administration and numerous members of Congress.
Back in August 2001, just two months before Enron imploded in a wave of accounting scandals in which thousands of employees lost their jobs and their pensions, and which wiped out $60 billion in shareholder value, an Enron lobbyist tipped off the Bush administration about the company's impending financial problems.
A former Enron executive who was then under congressional investigation in relation to the company's collapse explained at the time how Skilling's abrupt resignation from the company raised red flags within Enron and worried insiders.
"It was very well known that Enron faced a financial meltdown," the former executive said at the time, and when interviewed again for this story last week the executive repeated those remarks. "The day that Jeff resigned, our stock plummeted. We knew it wouldn't rally. What we didn't know was how the financial problems at Enron would impact the energy markets in the US. That's why Pat met with Mr. McNally."
http://www.counterpunch.org/leopold02012006.html
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