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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: PeterBerrington who wrote (40489)	9/28/2000 6:40:36 PM
From: flatsville	Respond to of 769667

Oh no Peter. There's plenty of sleasze for the current generation. Thanks for the opportunity... BUSH KNEW OF HIS COMPANY'S CRISIS BEFORE SELLING STOCK Also Violated SEC Rule, 8 Months Late in Reporting Transaction Before selling his stock in a Texas oil company, a transaction that prompted an insider trading inquiry, George W. Bush was informed as a company director that the firm was suffering a cash "crisis," newly released records show. The internal corporate documents, released by the Securities and Exchange Commission, provide the most detailed view yet of Bush's knowledge of Harken Energy Corp.'s financial problems when he sold his shares for $848,560 in June 1990. Bush's lawyer said Wednesday the information, though new to the presidential campaign, was provided to the SEC as part of its investigation a decade ago and contributed to the agency's finding that Bush's trading was appropriate..... Insider trading allegations have been an issue in both Bush's run for governor in Texas and his presidential bid. The SEC in the last month released several hundred pages of corporate documents from its investigation under the Freedom of Information Act.... At the time of the investigation, Bush's father was president of the United States and the SEC was run by one of his biggest political supporters, Richard Breeden. The SEC's then-general counsel, James R. Doty, was another staunch presidential supporter who as a private attorney was George W. Bush's lawyer when he purchased his share of the Texas Rangers baseball team." --AP, 9/7/00 "George Bush, Junior sold 60% of his stock in Harken Oil in June, 1990 for $848,560. That was brilliant timing; in August, Iraq invaded Kuwait and Harken's stock dropped 25%. Soon after, a big quarterly loss caused it to drop further. A secret State Deparment memo in May of that year had warned that Saddam was out of control, and listed options for responding to him, including an oil ban that might affect US oil prices. We can't be sure that the President or an aide mentioned these developments to his son, or that Harken's representative who was admitted to meetings with the President picked up something and reported back to Junior. But it is the simplest and most logical explanation. The Bushes acknowledge that George Senior and his sons consult on political strategy and other matters constantly. Furthermore, Harken's internal financial advisers at Smith Barney had issued a report in May warning of the company's deteriorating finances. Harken owed more than $150 million to banks and other creditors at the time. George Bush, Jr. was a member of the board and also of Harken's restructuring committee, which met in May and worked directly with the Smith Barney consultants. He must have known of these warnings. These are pretty clear-cut indications of illegal insider trading. The Securities and Exchange Commission, controlled at the time by President George Bush, investigated but chose not to press charges. Junior also violated another SEC rule explicitly. He was required to register his sale as an insider trade by July 10, 1990, but didn't until March 1991, after the Gulf War was over. He was not punished or cited." --Skeleton Closet