| Subject: Re: Bush changes story on Harken-SEC filing |
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Kathyrn
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Date Posted: 10:39:17 07/05/02 Fri
Author Host/IP: 209.240.222.131
In reply to:
Corrupt Shrub's Number Appear tew be UP!@!!! :) HYPOCRITE!!
's message, "Bush changes story on Harken-SEC filing" on 21:33:00 07/04/02 Thu
>July 4, 2002 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- As a Texas oilman,
>President Bush engaged in some of the same kinds of
>business practices he's now promising to clean up in
>response to a wave of corporate scandals.
>
>Bush was a board member of Harken Energy Corp. in 1989
>when the company engaged in a transaction that later
>prompted an inquiry by the Securities and Exchange
>Commission. The SEC forced the company to amend its
>books to reflect millions of dollars in losses that
>had been masked by the sale of a subsidiary to a group
>of insiders. And Bush, who was on the company's audit
>committee, was the subject of a separate insider stock
>trade investigation by the SEC.
>
>More than a decade later, the SEC is investigating
>insider deals and questionable bookkeeping at Enron,
>WorldCom and other companies, and Bush is promising to
>crack down on corporate wrongdoers.
>
>Questions about Bush's past business practices
>prompted the White House to acknowledge Wednesday that
>he had failed to promptly disclose the 1990 sale of
>his Harken stock as required by federal law. The
>notice of the sale was filed with the SEC 34 weeks
>after it took place.
>
>A spokesman blamed it on a clerical mistake by company
>lawyers. Bush has said previously that he filed the
>disclosure form and government regulators lost it.
>
>Bush's stock sale was the subject of an SEC insider
>trading investigation. The president sold Harken stock
>for $848,000 two months before the company reported
>millions of dollars in losses. The stock price plunged
>from $4 when Bush sold it in June 1990 to a dollar a
>share by year-end.
>
>Bush had gotten the stock when Harken bought his
>failing oil company in the mid-1980s. The SEC took no
>action in the insider trading probe of Bush.
>
>Democrats have made Bush's dealings at Harken a
>political issue over the years, and it resurfaced in
>recent days because of Bush's promises to deal harshly
>with corporate wrongdoers in the wake of the latest
>corporate scandal, at WorldCom.
>
>"It's time this CEO, President Bush, took
>responsibility for his actions as a private
>businessman and as president of the United States,"
>Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe
>said Wednesday. He said the Bush administration has
>"given the green light to unscrupulous CEOs by helping
>to foster a business environment that says 'if it
>feels good, do it."'
>
>WorldCom, the nation's second-largest provider of
>long-distance phone service, has said it inflated its
>earnings by wrongly listing on its books $3.8 billion
>of expenses in 2001 and $797 million for the first
>quarter of 2002.
>
>The White House dismissed comparisons between Bush's
>dealings at Harken and the current corporate scandals.
>
>"To compare a $12 million sale of a subsidiary company
>by Harken to a deliberate attempt to hide $3.8 billion
>in losses is ridiculous," said White House
>Communications Director Dan Bartlett. "The proof is in
>the results. Harken fully complied with the SEC and
>restated its losses and by 1991 the value of their
>stock doubled from its price a year before." On
>Wednesday, Harken stock was selling for 45 cents a
>share.
>
>In the 1989 transaction, Harken financed the sale of a
>subsidiary to a partnership of its own executives. The
>company then counted the sale price as income,
>reducing its overall losses. Under pressure from the
>SEC, the company redid its books to reflect additional
>losses.
>
>WorldCom is the latest in a series of corporate
>scandals beginning with Enron, which filed for
>bankruptcy after revelations that it had concealed
>hundreds of millions of dollars in losses in
>off-the-books partnerships operated by company
>insiders.
>
>The accounting firm Arthur Andersen was the auditor
>for both WorldCom and Enron, and was found guilty of
>obstruction of justice regarding the Enron
>investigation. Andersen also was the accountant for
>Harken Energy when Bush sold his stock.
>
>After the Enron bankruptcy, Bush proposed a 10-point
>reform plan that included a requirement that
>executives promptly disclose when they sell or buy
>their company stock.
>
>On Wednesday, White House press secretary Ari
>Fleischer defended the president's sale of his Harken
>stock by saying Bush had notified the SEC in advance
>and in a timely manner that he intended to sell his
>shares. However, Bush failed to notify the SEC once
>the stock was actually sold, as required by law.
>
>Fleischer said that when Bush blamed the SEC for
>losing the form, he may have been referring to the
>first form which he knew he had filed.
>
>Initially, Fleischer said that the second form -- on
>the actual sale -- is filed by the corporation, but
>later he said he did not know who bears the legal
>responsibility
>
>Federal law says that it is the responsibility of the
>individual director -- not the corporation -- to file
>the form.
>
>
>- - - - - - - - - - - -
None of this shocks you does it?
It is interesting how they keep trying to cover up and down play every crooked thing that comes out about him- before and after he moved to the White House.
Yeah, looks like we can really count on Bush to fix the problems and jail the corporate crooks eh?
LOL I am not counting on him doing anything but hand them more money.
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