Delay/Abramoff/Enron--will their connection come out in the Enron trial?

[rainbow4321]

http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=1743

<snip>

Tom DeLay, his wife Christine, his daughter Dani, and three staff members arrived to celebrate the New Year’s holiday in 1998. They stayed in a posh Hyatt Regency and found time for a couple of rounds of golf under the caring watch of the staffs of the governor and Willie Tan. At a dinner in honor of Tan, DeLay recalled enlightening conversations he had enjoyed with various powers in the Marianas and oozed with deference to “the Mogul.” When came to my office in the Capitol, he told me about the conservative policies that the CNMI has implemented. When I met the Governor, he told me about his proposals to pass a flat tax and school choice for children. When I played golf with in Houston, they told me about the attempts of the Clinton Administration to kill prosperity on the islands. And when one of my closest and dearest friends, Jack Abramoff, your most able representative in Washington, D.C., invited me to the islands, I wanted to see firsthand the free market success in the CNMI and the progress and reform you have made. Even though I have only been here for twenty-four hours, I have witnessed the economic success of the CNMI and I have witnessed the friendship and good will of its people.”
<snip>

Enron CEO Ken Lay had participated in early organizational meetings of Tom DeLay’s ARMPAC. Enron had loved Project Relief and channeled hundreds of thousands of dollars into DeLay’s politics and future. In turn, DeLay had been an indefatigable champion of deregulation of the utility industry in Congress in 1996 and 1997. But Enron no longer wanted just to break up monopolies and use existing grids to move the electricity it sold. It had grandiose plans to construct power plants all over the world—from Bolivia to the Marianas Islands. Ed Buckham, DeLay’s former congressional chief of staff who became a political director of ARMPAC, accompanied DeLay and his family on the trek to bring in the New Year, then set up the Alexander Strategies Group, the lobbying firm composed entirely of former DeLay staffers. Enron then contracted Buckham to lobby on “energy deregulation issues in the Marianas Islands.” One can see how Enron officials believed that the fix was in.


Over the furious protests of Willie Tan’s group, in May 2000 the utility’s board voted 3-2 to award the contract to Enron. It gave the business of finalizing the contract language to Fulbright& Jaworski, a Houston mega-firm. The Mogul had come up against a power that was greater than his own. “There were all kinds of political pushes from the top and the side and every way,” said a manager of the commonwealth’s utilities company. “There were all kinds of political interference. didn’t want to understand it. They said, ‘Just do it! Give Enron the contract.’”


In March 2001, the utilities company and Enron announced they had closed a deal for a scaled-down 60-megawatt plant. Just a month later Enron flabbergasted the islanders by breaking off the talks and announcing it had lost all interest in the Marianas project. Enron had kept its adventure in the Pacific afloat, knowing that it was sailing into those waters aboard the Titanic. In December of that year, Enron filed for the biggest corporate bankruptcy in American history. DeLay, who had frantically been trying to push through a bill that would have given Enron a $250 million tax rebate and some breathing room, told a TV reporter in Houston that he was “heartbroken.” But, unlike Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and other Texas Republicans, DeLay did not return one nickel of Enron contributions as a gesture to shareholders and employees. As long as he contained the political damage, it was no real skin off his back—nor those of his lobbyist pals Jack Abramoff, Mike Scanlon, and Ed Buckham.

[Independent_Liberal]

1. ENRON! THAT'S THE BIGGEST FUCKING SCANDAL EVER!

I just keep connecting those dots!

:)

[KharmaTrain]

2. This Is Where A Civil Suit Works Best

The Repugnicans used to have Larry Klayman who'd launch civil suits to pry into Clinton's pants...just like the Paula Jones case...that can be used to pry out the truth where a criminal suit can't.

It'll be interesting to see if a group of former Enron employees and or investors step forward once the criminal trial is over and launch a civil suit to investigate not the criminal negligence, but the financial irresponsibility that requires a lower burden of proof. While the proof is lower, the other process of the trial is similar to criminal...including the forcing of subpoenas and depositions and the turning over of documents and other materials germain to the suit. It hasn't been criminal suits that have hurt big tobacco...it's been the civil ones...and this is an option that can and should be used to get to the ultimate truths of what went on here.

The problem we're going to find in the Enron trial is the charges are very specific and the burden of proof will be very high. Many things that appear unethical aren't illegal and things that appear illegal won't be considered in a verdict as it will fall outside the narrow parameters of the indictments.

Again, a civil suit opens up not just the specific illegailities (and if there's a criminal conviction that will push any subsequent suit into a brighter light) but can lead to discovery that will enable investigators to connect the dots like you wish. While I don't think Enron money went directly to the boosh cabal or the Repugnican shakedown machine, I would bet there's private money or third party money that can be connected...that's when things get very interesting indeed.

Cheers...