Clinton Enron Nexus
Clinton Administration Procured Credit for Enron, Used CIA as Resource for Enron
As I see the usual suspects in the media trying to manufacture a scandal over Enron involving the Bush administration based solely on association, I have to laugh. Clinton and his administration were intimately involved with Enron and Enron CEO Ken Lay during the Clinton years.
Lay acted as a political ally for Clinton, collaborating with him to try and pass Fast Track (they failed) and on implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. Lay turns out to be an old friend of close Clinton aid Mack McClarty.
The Clinton Commerce Department under Ron Brown accompanied Enron officials on various overseas junkets and trade missions. The Commerce Department was an active partner with Enron in acquiring overseas contracts for Enron, in India and China for example. The Clinton administration was instrumental in lining up credit for Enron in these deals and used CIA resources to assess project risk and analyze the strategies of Enron's competitors.
Here are some citations and quotes. Keep this and shut up all the democrats and leftists screaming about this pseudo scandal.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
August 1993. New President Bill Clinton takes his first vacation, a ski weekend to Vail, Colorado.
Who shows up to visit with Clinton? Ken Lay, Enron CEO.
The Houston Chronicle
August 16, 1993, Monday, 2 STAR Edition SECTION: A; Pg. 5
HEADLINE: Clinton takes real vacation
BYLINE: GREG McDONALD; Staff
DATELINE: VAIL, Colorado
(excerpt)
A tired-looking Clinton, off on his first real vacation since becoming president, seemed reluctant Saturday morning to admit to reporters that he was having a good time. He kept mumbling stuff about health care being the next big ticket item on his domestic agenda. But by evening, he'd had such a good time on the local links with Ford, golf legend Jack Nicklaus and Houston's own Ken Lay, chairman of the Enron Corp. and one of George Bush's best pals, that he decided to stay over until today. Clinton, his face sunburned but beaming, told reporters that he and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and 13-year-old daughter Chelsea were having too good a time to leave Sunday as planned.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1994 - 1995 Clinton Administration "makes a sale" for Enron. Enron and the administration work together to win Enron the contract for a power plant in India.
Clinton uses resources from the CIA to assess risk and analyze the strategy of Enron's British competitor. The administration is instrumental in procuring $400 million in financing from the Export-Import Bank of the United States and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
The New York Times
February 19, 1995, Sunday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section 3; Page 1; Column 2; Business/Financial Desk
HEADLINE: How Washington Inc. Makes a Sale
BYLINE: By DAVID E. SANGER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
(excerpt)
For 18 months, the Indian power-plant deal has floated near the top of the list of 100 or so big infrastructure projects around the world that the United States Government desperately wants American firms to win. It is the first of eight big power generation projects in India, and if the American consortium could close this one, it would create a precedent likely to give other American companies an advantage in billions of dollars of follow-on deals. In years past, American officials would have offered some modest help, but only as a sideshow to bigger foreign policy concerns, from containing Communist influence in South Asia to keeping India and Pakistan from accelerating their nuclear arms race. But that was another era in American foreign policy, before the Commerce Department built what Jeffrey E. Garten, the undersecretary of commerce for international trade, calls "our economic war room."
From that Washington war room, the negotiators for the Enron Corporation, the lead bidder in the American consortium, have been shadowed and assisted by a startling array of Government agencies. In a carefully-planned assault, the State and Energy Departments pressed the firms' case. The American ambassador to India, Frank G. Wisner, constantly cajoled Indian officials. The Secretary of Energy, Hazel O'Leary, brought in delegations of other executives -- including some last week -- to make the point that more American investment is in the wings if the conditions are right.
To sweeten the pot, the Export-Import Bank of the United States and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation put together $400 million in financing. And working just behind the scenes, as it often does these days, was the Central Intelligence Agency, assessing the risks of the project and scoping out the the competitive strategies of Britain and other countries that want a big chunk of the Indian market.
The big push by Washington Inc. paid off last month when the Indian government awarded the power plant project to the American consortium.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
October 1995. Bill Clinton recruits Ken Lay to act as a point man for Clinton in drumming up support for Fast Track legislation. Lay just happens to be an old friend of Mack McClarty.
Journal of Commerce
October 10, 1995, Tuesday SECTION: FOREIGN TRADE, Pg. 3A
HEADLINE: OUTSIDERS CALLED IN TO END LOGJAM ON TRADE AUTHORITY
BYLINE: JOHN MAGGS; Journal of Commerce Staff
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
(excerpt)
Two distinguished political doctors have been brought in to try to revive a nearly dead bill allowing President Clinton to secure new trade agreements with other nations.
Bill Frenzel, a former Republican member of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Ken Lay, chief executive of natural-gas giant Enron Corp., have been called in to break a year-long impasse that has blocked meaningful progress on trade pacts with Chile, the rest of Latin America, and the Pacific im.
Both men are well known to one player in that dispute - Ways and Means Chairman Bill Archer, R-Texas, whose district includes Enron's headquarters in Houston. The two also have connections to the Clinton administration. Mr. Frenzel served as a special adviser to Mr. Clinton to lobby his former colleagues on the North American Free Trade Agreement. Mr Lay has been a friend of Clinton adviser Thomas "Mac" McLarty since Mr. McLarty's time as head of Arkansas' largest natural-gas utility.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
August 1997 Clinton hosts Ken Lay at White House to discuss upcoming meeting in Kyoto, Japan concerning greenhouse gas.
The Houston Chronicle
August 6, 1997, Wednesday, 3 STAR Edition SECTION: BUSINESS; Business Digest; Pg. 1
HEADLINE: BRIEFCASE; White House warms to BP exec
BYLINE: Staff
(full text)
The Clinton administration, when calling business leaders to the White House to discuss what the United States' bargaining position on global warming should be at upcoming negotiations in Kyoto, Japan, chose John Browne of British Petroleum to represent the oil industry. But Browne is British, head of a London-based company. And Britain's new Labor government has blasted the United States for failing to go far enough to reduce greenhouse gases. So why was a Brit asked to participate? Browne has broken ranks with other oil executives to concede a buildup of carbon dioxide gases may be changing the Earth's climate. BP also happens to be the United States' largest crude oil producer with 13,000 employees in this country, company officials pointed out. Enron Corp.Chief Executive Ken Lay, who also was at the Monday meeting, said Clinton sounded Browne out on his opinions of the policies being pushed by the Europeans. Nobody seemed to worry the United States was tipping its hand. ""This is kind of early in the process,'' Lay said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
October 2000 Near end of Clinton's Presidency, but prior to the November election, a Clinton Assistant Treasury Secretary takes a position at Enron as vice president for federal government affairs. Observers call it a slap in the face to George Bush.
The Washington Post
October 12, 2000, Thursday, Final Edition SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A23; SPECIAL INTERESTS
HEADLINE: Enron Hire Faces Some Partisan Fire
BYLINE: Judy Sarasohn
(excerpt)
Enron announced yesterday that Linda Robertson, assistant Treasury secretary for legislative affairs and public liaison, will join the Houston energy company in early November as vice president for federal government affairs. She will replace Joe Hillings, who earlier announced his retirement.
Ken Lay, chairman and chief executive of Enron, has given more than $ 290,000 of his own money to the Republican Party this year to help elect Bush, his longtime friend, president. But that didn't insulate Enron from criticism in some Republican quarters on Capitol Hill. "Enron has just slapped George W. Bush across the face. It just makes little sense," a GOP leadership aide said yesterday.
freerepublic.com |
