Lay resigned today as CEO of Enron. He is still on the BOD at this time though. The whitehouse is starting to feel the heat and is now saying they might start answering some questions. To hear them talk about it you would think they have been completely cooperative all along.
I bet Enron would like to appoint another CEO who is close to Bush/Chaney and a crony of the Houston oilmen but will they have the nerve?
The part about Duncan is interesting. I think he knows he is going to have to answer the questions in some way.
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(CBS) Enron Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Ken Lay resigned his post Wednesday, more than a month after the company he ran from its start in 1986 ended up in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the company said.
Meanwhile, the Arthur Andersen auditor fired for his role in the destruction of Enron-related documents is refusing to testify to Congress about the shredding, his attorney said Wednesday.
Lay, who will retire as an Enron employee, will remain on the company's board of directors. The board, along with the bankruptcy creditors committee, is now selecting a restructuring specialist to join Enron to steer the failed energy trader out of bankruptcy while serving as an acting chief executive.
"This was a decision the board and I reached in cooperation with our creditors' committee," Lay said in a statement released by Enron Wednesday night.
"I want to see Enron survive, and for that to happen we need someone at the helm who can focus 100 percent of his efforts on reorganizing the company and preserving value for our creditors and hard-working employees."
Lay said the many inquiries and investigations into Enron's activities take up too much of his time and make it more difficult for him to concentrate fully on what is most important to Enron's stakeholders.
In inquiries with both financial and political overtones, 11 House and Senate committees are investigating Enron, while the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission pursue their own less-visible probes.
Lay, 59, has come under fire for touting Enron stock to employees a month after he was warned that the energy-trading giant faced potential accounting scandals.
Just months ago, Enron was the country's seventh biggest company in revenue. But investors and traders alike evaporated amid revelations of questionable partnerships that helped keep billions of dollars in debt off its books and the company's acknowledgment that it overstated profits for four years. The company filed for bankruptcy in December.
Lay is expected to testify before two congressional committees on Feb. 4.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee served a subpoena Wednesday morning to Andersen auditor David Duncan to testify at a hearing Thursday.
But one of Duncan's attorneys, Robert Giuffra, told the committee in a letter that "he will rely on his constitutional right not to testify" unless he is given immunity by the panel.
Congress can compel witnesses to show up, but cannot force them to answer potentially incriminating questions without granting them immunity from criminal prosecution.
CBSNews.com Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen says Congressional authorities now have a choice: they can offer Duncan some sort of immunity to force his testimony or they can try to get to the bottom of all of this without him. And if they do offer Duncan immunity, he'll then have a choice: testify under oath or face contempt charges.
Duncan was dismissed by Andersen last week for his role in the extensive destruction of Enron-related documents after federal regulators began investigating possible irregularities in the failed energy company's accounting.
The committee had planned to subpoena Andersen chief executive officer Joseph Berardino. But the Big Five accounting firm agreed late Tuesday to send Dorsey Baskin, an expert on auditing standards.
Subpoenas were also issued to Andersen attorney Nancy Temple and risk manager Michael Odom for their testimony at the hearing Thursday.
"No one's getting a free pass on this one," Ken Johnson, spokesman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said Tuesday.
Temple and Odom, while expressing willingness to testify, have raised concerns about protecting confidential information relating to the investigation, Johnson said.
CBS News Chief White House Correspondent John Roberts reports that political pressure is building on the White House to clarify its connections to Enron. Four prominent Senators sent a letter to the General Accounting Office urging it step up a probe of the president's energy plan and the role Enron may have played in shaping it.
Once again, the White House refused to cooperate, claiming the GAO doesn't have the authority to investigate.
"There's been no change in the White House position at all, and that includes my statement probably about 10 days ago when I said there was no change in the White House position," said White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer.
Enron's own shredding, meanwhile, is being investigated by FBI agents at the bankrupt energy company's Houston headquarters.
News of the planned subpoenas came as FBI agents and federal prosecutors entered Enron's Houston headquarters to investigate allegations that massive document destruction took place at the company starting after Thanksgiving and continuing until as recently as last week.
A lawyer representing Enron employees in a class action lawsuit told CBS News Tuesday that document shredding at the beleaguered energy giant was "notorious," a wide-open effort that went until very recently.
"We know that the shredding took place in the Enron finance and accounting department, which is significant," said attorney William Lerach, adding that while the documents can't be completely put back together, they clearly deal with what he called the company's "illicit partnerships."
Lerach said some of the shredded papers "included those clearly marked Jedi II and Chewco" - a reference to partnerships through which Enron allegedly concealed hundreds of millions of dollars in debts because they were not included in the company's balance sheet. The partnerships, described by lawmakers as slick financial gimmicks, were a major factor in sending the company into a nosedive and bankruptcy.
Robert Bennett, a Washington attorney representing Enron, issued a statement saying Enron was investigating the alleged destruction of documents. The reported shredding at Enron follows revelations over the past week and a half about document destruction at Andersen.
Enron said in a statement late Monday that it had issued four e-mails from Oct. 25 to Jan. 14 warning employees against destroying documents, specifically those related to Enron's complex web of partnerships.
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