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Technology Stocks : Loral Space & Communications -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: skibob who wrote (3218)	5/20/1998 4:35:00 PM
From: Snake	Respond to of 10852

I wouldn't expect too much to happen soon, it never does. Justice has been investigating for 2 years and independent counsels, whatever their political motivations, try to do a throrough investigation, and that does not occurr in days, rather months/years. I would not be surprised to see some sell-off on Friday before a 3 day week-end. Too hot a story for the press. No one wants to be caught holding the stock if more bad press occurs over the weekend. I plan on buying Friday afternoon if this happens. I do think Loral will carry a cloud over it for a while.

To: skibob who wrote (3218)	5/20/1998 5:02:00 PM
From: dougjn	Respond to of 10852

There are really two seperate things going on, which the Republicans are doing their best to mix together in the public mind, with ready help from the muckracking press. One issue is whether there were illegal foreign (i.e. Chinese national) campaign contibutions to Clinton or the DNC. That issue will drag on forever. It has now been ignited by a new Chinese purported whistleblower. The other issue is whether Clinton granted Loral waivers because he got 600k in soft campaign money (in itself legal) from B.Schwartz. And to give that allegation umph, the Republicans, and the press, have mixed in the notion that Loral was under investigation from the DoJ for in effect passing secrets to the Chinese. Any quid pro quo re: the B.S. campaign contribution issue will be impossible to prove, in all liklihood. (Of course I also don't believe it.) Bernard Schwartz will however no doubt be dragged before a Congressional Committee to testify. Re: Loral giving the Chinese the rocket explosion report, if it was a violation at all it was a technical one, with no secrets transmitted from what I can tell. And certainly no bad intent. And it also looks to not even be a technical violation. (The regs. then in place didn't discuss accident reports, it appears from between the lines of an early NY Times story.) Once the spotlight really gets on this aspect, which is the only one which really involves Loral, I think it will diminish pretty quickly. But it will probably take quite a while to all get teased appart. Especially since many people in the press and elsewhere are pre-disposed to think they really can't understand these rocket science issues. So I guess it could be a while. On the other hand, its always possible the press does tease it apart. (Don't count on Congress.) For one thing, I have the impression that Bernard Schwartz, who is hardly an unknown, has some pretty good relations with the press. Helps one get a fair hearing, after the din recedes a bit. Doug