Dude, Where's My Country_ - Michael Moore [65]
The rest of Lay’s time in Washington was spent next door with his old buddy, Vice President Dick Cheney. The two formed an “energy task force” responsible for drafting the country’s new “energy policy,” a policy that could affect virtually all of Enron’s business dealings. Cheney and/or his aides met with Enron executives at least six times during this period, but no one knows the full extent of the meetings because Cheney has refused to make public the records of those meetings. Meanwhile, Enron’s wheeler-dealers were cooking up schemes to manipulate an energy crisis in California that would end up adding millions to their own pockets.
Does any of this ring a bell? You may have forgotten, with all the military distractions that have taken the focus off of Enron, that this was one of the greatest corporate scandals in the history of the United States. And it was committed by one of the “president’s” closest friends. I’m sure Bush thanks God every night, for the War on Terror!, 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Axis of Evil all but assured that Enron would disappear from the news and from the minds of the voting public. This scandal should have resulted in Bush’s early impeachment and removal from our White House, but fate often has a way of working in Bush’s favor and letting him escape the consequences of his actions. As I’ve pointed out before, when you’ve had three run-ins with the law, as he has, and never spent a single night in jail, you have the lucky touch, and for people like him it rarely goes away.
But I, for one, will not forget Enron, and neither should you. It’s an event that goes beyond corporate malfeasance to a concerted plan to wreck our economy and elect political hacks who would protect them in their scheme to attack America from within.
When things were good at Enron, they were very, very good. Lay and other high-ranking honchos took home huge paychecks, and enjoyed generous expense accounts and lavish perks. The sweet life at Enron helped them afford to make significant donations to politicians in both major parties—politicians who were able to ensure that the regulatory climate stayed very, very sympathetic to Enron’s interests. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Enron gave nearly $6 million to the Republican and Democratic parties since 1989, with 74 percent going to the Republicans. This meant that when Congress began investigating Enron at the beginning of 2002, 212 of the 248 members of the House and Senate on the investigating committees had taken campaign contributions from Enron or its crooked accountant, Arthur Andersen.
Even lower-level Enron employees thought they had a good deal going: They sat back and watched their retirement plans, heavily invested in Enron stock, grow and grow.
But the company’s phenomenal success was fleeting . . . and fraudulent. Much of Enron’s profitability was achieved through the creation of shell partnerships, and was propped up by dubious (and possibly criminal) accounting practices. It’s unclear how much of the true story will ever be known, as important documents were shredded before investigators could see them.
By the fall of 2001, the pyramid scheme that was Enron imploded. And while the rest of the country was in a state of shock over 9/11, Enron executives were busy bailing out, selling stocks, and shredding documents.
And a national crisis didn’t stop them from reaching out to their buddies in the Bush administration. Calls were placed by Enron executives to Commerce Secretary Don Evans and then-Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, seeking help as the company was on the brink of collapse.
Evans and O’Neill said they did nothing when Enron told them of the company’s shell game and impending failure, and the administration proudly