Posted on 08/08/2002 1:45:23 PM PDT by Trailer Trash
Maybe he's trying to lose weight so he'll get the 'sympathy' factor when he testifies before the many House, Senate, SEC and Justice Department inquiries. He can then invoke victim status!
Didn't Clinton make a big deal about how no one in his administration was going to lobby government after leaving government?
Yep .. up till right before he left office .. I think it was one of his midnight signing that fixed that problem
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm ... Gee I wonder if Clinton's cooked goverment books had anything to do with this??
January 2, 2001Clinton lifts lobbying restrictions on appointees
By Jason Peckenpaugh
jpeckenpaugh@govexec.comNearly eight years after issuing ethics rules severely limiting the ability of top political appointees to lobby the government after leaving office, President Clinton has revoked the executive order behind the restrictions.
In a Dec. 28 statement, Clinton revoked Executive Order 12834, which placed a variety of post-employment lobbying restrictions on senior political appointees. Under the executive order, top officials were prohibited from lobbying their former colleagues for five years and faced a lifetime ban on lobbying on behalf of foreign governments. Clinton appointees will still be subject to a one-year ban on lobbying their former agencies under a 1978 law. . .more...
OK ... refresh my memory .. when was this call made??
On November 8, though, Bob Rubin's invisible hand got that old itch. Enron's stock was in free fall, and though the energy-trading company was still far from a household name, he feared the company's bankruptcy would be a dire event. Citigroup, one of its longstanding bankers, had more than a billion dollars in loans outstanding to Enron. But Rubin had larger concerns. He had been told by his bankers working on the deal, Salomon's Carpenter and syndicated-loan head Chad Leat, that a rescue package was almost assembled. The night before, a group of the highest-level Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase bankers cobbled together a deal that would merge the fast-sinking Enron with its Houston competitor Dynegy.But for the deal to go through, the credit-ratings agencies needed to be dissuaded from downgrading Enron's mountain of debt to junk status. With a downgrade, the deal would be off and Enron would most likely go bust. In Rubin's eyes, Enron's implosion would rock not only the energy markets but global markets as a whole -- just as the collapse first of the Mexican peso and then of Mexico's stock market in 1994 had wobbled markets worldwide.
So Bob Rubin did what Bob Rubin does. On his own, without consulting Weill or anyone else, he picked up the phone and made what he thought would be the most discreet of calls to Treasury Undersecretary Peter Fisher. Rubin and Fisher weren't strangers -- Rubin knew him from his Treasury days, when Fisher worked at the New York Fed.
"Hey, Peter," Rubin proposed, "this is probably not such a good idea, but what do you think about putting a call in to the ratings agencies? Maybe they could work with Enron's bankers to see if there might be an alternative to an immediate downgrade."
It was a cheeky proposal: Rubin was asking the federal government to meddle in the private business of the independent ratings agencies, Moody's and Standard and Poor's, on behalf of a company with manifold financial and spiritual links to the current administration. Not to mention the fact that he was a major shareholder and executive of one of the two banks that stood to lose the most if Enron went under. "Gee, Bob," Fisher smartly demurred, "I'm not sure if that's advisable at this point." More:
I suppose that he could not be charged with "conspiracy to commit fraud" because "they would have difficulty proving intent"?
Just like Mary Jo White not prosecuting Torricelli because they only had the testimony of a convicted felon. Message? Any crooked politician can skate if he deals only with convicted felons.
Take my word for it Joe, it would add a bit of credibility to your "investigation".
TITLE 18
PART I
CHAPTER 11
Sec. 207. - Restrictions on former officers, employees, and elected officials of the executive and legislative branches
Clinton' s EO took effect at noon on the day he left office so that doesn't apply but the 1978 one year ban seems as if it does. Did Rubin duck out before Clinton or did he leave the same day?
In one of the articles about a week ago (might have been a Washington Times editorial) it was mentioned that Ken Lay had called several people in government (maybe Sec. of Commerce, Sec. of the Treasury, etc.) trying to do the same thing that Rubin did. If memory serves, that was Nov. 8, the same day that Rubin called the guy at the Treasury.
Doesn't that sound like there may have been a conspiracy? One of the first questions to be asked of Rubin: Did Ken Lay or anyone else at Enron call you within the week before you called Treasury?
Second question: If so, did that person suggest to you that you should call Treasury (and Moody's as well)?
If "NO", did you suggest to that person that you might call Treasury and see if they could help?
Etc., etc.. And, by the way, I don't think that you have to commit fraud to be convicted of "conspiracy to commit fraud". If I try to hire you to kill my wife and the cops find out, I'm pretty sure that we would both be charged with "conspiracy to commit murder".
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