Auditor Says Enron Documents Gone

AP ^ | 01/10/2002

[dead]

Sounds Clintonesque. I hope Bush is going to Plan B.

The guy at McDonald’s burned my burger this afternoon.

Do you have any theories on why Bush would have ordered him to do this?

[Wolfie]

Missing? Nooooo...Really? Who'd a thunk it. Maybe AA needs to look up the definition of "auditor".

[Bigg Red]

Beat me to it!

[mountaineer]

Thanks for the info. I doubt AA's the only firm that conveniently overlooks corporate mismanagement. The VP-Finance at the college in my town has been cooking the books for years, and the auditor (another big 8 accounting firm) gives the school a clean bill of health every year.

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

I just want to thank you for being there on all these trumped up threads re: President Bush and Enron. I know we have not agreed through the years on all things - but I just wanted to express appreciation from the peanut gallery for your dependable debunking presence on these pen Enron on Bush threads.

Well done. Keep it up.

[Peach]

You have it exactly right about Arthur Anderson - money grubbing law-breaking auditors. Not the first time and unless they go down for this, it won't be the last time either.

[Neanderthal]

"The Big Five accounting firm said in a statement that in recent months, electronic files and other documents related to its auditing of Enron had been destroyed or deleted."

It is very hard to destroy electronic documents at a Big 5 accounting firm completely. Everything that is ever put on the network is backed up 6 ways to Sunday at least weekly and sometimes daily.

Paper documents are another story - they can easily be Hillaried, and laptop files that didn't hit the network can be deleted permanently with a little computer know-how . . .

[Carolinamom]

Could any accountant here explain to a dummie (moi) how auditors "cook the books"?

[Fury]

This should not be a surprise to anyone.

Enron mislead and cooked their books, along with the dubious accounting deals they had. Missing documents is nothing more than another piece in an apparently well established pattern of deception and obstruction.

What is laughable is that the media, and many of the lib web sites (DU, Democrats.com, etc.) are just going bonkers over this and believe that GW and Vp Cheney were not indirectly, but directly and actively involved in the Enron matter. Their logic in coming to the conclusions they do suggests they have a solution in search of a problem. They have already come to the conclusions they have, now they need to fashion the evidence to support those conclusions.

Enron supported both political parties for sure. One thing I would be concerned about is the relationship of the Gramm's to Enron - that situation is much more troubling. Also, as Rush suggested today, one has the feeling that when the Enron matter is fully investigated, that many Dems will be stuttering to explain the relationship with Enron. But based on the comments at sites like DU, there are some left leaning folks that will do anything to link Enron to GW.

[Peach]

Your comment regarding the Republicans being involved in disappearing documents at Arthur Anderson is rich. AA has made documents disappear before in an unrelated case in CT years ago. Guess that was the Republicans fault too.

[Carry_Okie]

There is a shred of evidence!

[lewislynn]

The most arrogant, money-grubbing of the big audit firms.

Sort of goes hand in hand with being the auditors of "The most arrogant, money-grubbing of the big" energy traitors traders.

[Dog Gone]

It would be in AA's interest to lose or destroy incriminating documents, I should think.

It's actually pretty difficult to destroy these things since just about everything is created and maintained on computers. Hitting the delete key doesn't do it, and don't tell me that Arthur Anderson doesn't run backup tapes of everything on its server every night and store each of those tapes for some length of time.

To destroy records is an enormous and deliberate task today. If this is true, much of the wrath that has been directed at Enron is going to be shifted to AA.

[deport]

2002 Cycle

Rank	Organization	Amount	Dems	Repubs
1	Ernst & Young	$506,086	29%	70%
2	Deloitte & Touche	$446,723	25%	75%
3	Andersen	$326,697	36%	64%
4	PricewaterhouseCoopers	$283,125	27%	73%

---

2000 Cycle

Rank	Organization	Amount	Dems	Repubs
1	Ernst & Young	$2,579,076	42%	57%
2	Deloitte & Touche	$1,860,126	30%	70%
3	PricewaterhouseCoopers	$1,766,019	27%	73%
4	Andersen Worldwide	$1,431,305	29%	71%
5	KPMG LLP	$1,286,564	29%	70%

[mountaineer]

I'm trying to find info on Joseph F. Berardino, managing partner and CEO of AA, and will advise.

[A Citizen Reporter]

I have been thinking the same thing. If Andersen had both the consulting and the auditing business of Enron, that is a lot of human beings running around with laptop computers and files. It seems improbable that all of the evidence could be gone.......

[Lazamataz]

This is going to be very messy, for Republicans in particular.

Not if Bush seizes the high ground. I would, if I were Bush, on this one act of documentary malfeasance alone, order all of the directors of Enron held in custody, immediately, pending further investigation. Starting with that one guy who was his 'friend'.