35 reasons why the Democrats are hypocrites when it comes to Enron:
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1. -From 1990 to 1994 Enron gave 42% of their donations to the Democrats.
2. -Florida's state pension fund, which lost $325 million on Enron, is examining what role Frank Savage, a major Democratic donor, may have played in the state's loss. The fund's investments were directed by Alliance Capital Management, where Savage was a senior executive and chairman at the same time he sat on Enron's board. He has donated $100,000 to Democrats and is raising money for New York gubernatorial candidate Carl McCall.
3. -Lloyd Bensten, Clinton's first treasury secretary, was a recipient of Enron's money. At the time of his campaign for Senate, he received the second largest donation from Enron according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
4. -Robert Rubin, Bensten's successor, was involved with Enron while he worked as an investment banker at Goldman & Sachs. Clinton first hired Rubin to head his National Economic Council. Soon afterwards, Rubin wrote on Goldman Sachs stationery to former clients, including Enron, in which he ''looked forward to continuing to work with you in my new capacity.''
5. -In the days when Franjo Tudjman was Croatia's dictator and pretending to be both a reformed communist and best friend of America in the Balkans, poor Franjo had a problem. He and some of his very best friends were wanted as war criminals by the Hague's International Court of Justice. Enron wanted a power contract with Croatia. Enron offered a deal to Tudjman. Sign up with us and we will use our gang in Washington to make sure you and your friends don't go to jail.
Tudjman signed. Enron made a heap of money. Nobody went to jail. Everyone was happy - until Tudjman died of cancer. Then the lid was off, his Croatian Democratic Union was defeated and the new boys in power in Zagreb could not believe how much of their budget went to pay the electricity bills from Enron.
6. - In August 1993, McLarty, Clinton's former chief of staff, arranged an invitation for Lay, Enron's CEO, to play golf with Clinton in Vail, Colorado. This date irritated Oscar Wyatt, chief executive of Coastal, another natural gas company that had helped the Clinton election campaign raise funds. These connections to the Democratic administration helped Enron considerably.
7. -Clinton officials publicly helped Enron win the contract in India as well as in Indonesia. Enron had received U.S. government funds to build power plants in China, the Philippines and Turkey. Enron also won contracts in Pakistan and Russia while accompanying senior U.S. government officials on state trips. In June 1996, four days before India granted final approval to Enron's project, Lay's company gave $100,000 to the DNC.
8. -According to the Houston Chronicle, Enron got permission to build a pipeline from Mozambique to South Africa after National Security Adviser Anthony Lake threatened to withhold aid to Mozambique if it didnt approve the project.
9. -The bulk of Enron's alleged chicanery had to have happened during the Clinton administration.
10. -Mayor Lee. P Brown (D) of Houston received $250,000 just before Enron filed Chapter 11. Enron campaigned against the conservative candidate for mayor.
11. -Kenneth Lay hired the firm of Clinton's former chief of staff Mack McLarty.
12. -The Center for Responsive Politics lists Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer of New York, John Breaux of Louisiana, and Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico--chair of the Senate Energy Committee--among the top beneficiaries of Enron's political donations.
13. -Kenneth Lay retained Linda Robertson, a Democrat who worked for the Clinton Treasury Department, as his top D.C. lobbyist.
14. -Dynergy, an energy company which wanted to buy Enron and later sued them, donated thousands of dollars to Henry Waxman, one of the men leading the Enron investigation.
15. -The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee received three checks from the Houston-based energy and trading giant totaling $100,000. Karen Denne, an Enron spokeswoman, said the company had a record of two checks written to the committee -- dated Sept. 24 and Nov. 2
16. -Joe Lieberman's and Tom Daschle's Largest Contributor in the 2000 election cycle was Enron's Largest Creditor, Citigroup.
17. -Enron was apparently a big backer of some parts of the Kyoto Treaty.
18. -Ken Lay slept in the Clinton White House and served as an adviser to the Clinton White House on energy issues.
19. -Enron's lead Washington lawyer is Robert Bennett, who represented Clinton in the Paula Jones case.
20. -Neil Eggleston, a former White House associate counsel under Clinton, represents Enron's outside directors.
21. -David Boies, Al Gore's lead lawyer in the Florida recount, is representing former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow.
22. -Ken Lay was a strong supporter of former Democratic Texas Gov. Ann Richards who appointed the Enron exec to the Governor's Business Council.
23. -Enron introduced the Clinton team to Lippo Industries and thence to China's People's Liberation Army (a wonderful source of political cash), to John Huang, another good provider.
24. -Tony Lake, then Clinton's national security adviser, persuaded the impoverished, war-torn country of Mozambique to sign a $770 million electric power contract with Enron.
25. -Al Gore and Bill Clinton introduced Enron to market managers in Russia, China, Indonesia and India. In India, Enron quickly became involved in one of that country's most massive corruption investigations, contracts were canceled and Enron was out.
26. -Houston Chronicle: Just days before Enron Corp. landed in bankruptcy court, the one-time political powerhouse may still have been funneling campaign dollars to Democratic lawmakers, federal election records indicate.
27. -Enron contributed some $530,000 to the DNC during the 2000 election alone.
28. -Ken Lay hired Betsy Moler, Clinton's deputy energy secretary, as a consultant. She was accused of stopping Energy Department counterintelligence chief Notra Trulock from briefing Congress early on about Chinese espionage and security lapses at Energy's nuclear weapons labs
29. -Government records show that, during the Clinton years, Lay and other Enron executives got seats on at least four Energy Department trade missions and at least seven Commerce Department trade trips.
30. -The congressman who recieved the most money from Enron in the past 12 years is Ken Bentsen (D-Texas) who received $42,750. The second largest receiver was Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) who received $38,000
31. -The ranking member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, John D. Dingell (D-Mich), is the 10th largest receiver of Enron contributions totalling $9,000.
32. -71 House Democrats received $257,140 Enron Contributions.
33. -Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) was the 20th member of the Senate to have received the most money from Enron. He received a total of $6,000.
34. -29 Senate Democrats, not including those that are retired, were unseated, or died, received a total of $110,513 in the last 12 years from Enron.
35. -To help push through energy initiatives in Africa, Clinton’s Energy Secretary (and Monica Lewinsky’s job counselor), Bill Richardson, visited Nigeria in August 1999. “As a result of Secretary Richardson's visit to Nigeria in August, we have embarked on a bilateral cooperation program. The Department is developing an action plan with the Government of Nigeria, which will be coordinated with USAID. Cooperation could include: restructuring and privatization; rural electrification; deployment of clean energy and renewable energy technologies; promotion of energy efficiency; and development of an independent regulatory authority.
This initiative, coordinated by Richardson, led to $882 million dollars in power contracts for Enron from the government of Nigeria:
Enron, an oil and gas firm in Houston, has signed a power purchase agreement to supply emergency electricity to state-owned power utility Nigerian Electric Power Authority (NEPA) through 30MW power barges located on the coast of Lagos State. Enron and its Nigerian joint venture partner signed the $82 million deal with NEPA and the power ministry in the capital Abuja. Enron and the Lagos state government entered a joint venture earlier in 1999 to build an $800 million gas-powered plant with capacity for 540 Megawatt (MW) to augment supply to the city.
Unfortunately for Enron, the Nigerian Government cancelled these contracts in April 2000. As a further reward for their generosity to the Democratic Party, Clinton Administration Special Envoy Thomas Pickering hustled off to Nigeria (on the taxpayer’s dime) to plead Enron’s case.
Unfortunately for Enron, the Nigerian Government cancelled these contracts in April 2000. As a further reward for their generosity to the Democratic Party, Clinton Administration Special Envoy Thomas Pickering hustled off to Nigeria (on the taxpayer’s dime) to plead Enron’s case.
Sources include AP, NewsMax.com, New York Post, WND.com, Time Magazine, The Houston Chronicle, Insight Magazine, Pittsburg Tribune-Review, Bloomberg News, CorpWatch.org, Fortune Magazine, PublicIntegrity.org, Washington Post, CNS News, wire services, Clinton White House documents, DNC fundraising records, and several other sources. |
