WASHINGTON - The timing of an accounting firm's memo directing the destruction of documents raises the serious possibility of obstruction of justice, according to the chairman of a Senate committee investigating Enron Corp.'s collapse.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said Sunday he was troubled that a lawyer at Arthur Andersen & Co., Enron's accounting firm directed the destruction of Enron documents. The memo from a lawyer was dated Oct. 12, 2001, when Andersen and executives of the energy giant "knew that Enron was in real trouble and the roof was about to collapse on them," Lieberman said.
Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, senior Democrat on the House Commerce Committee, said Monday that panel's investigation will focus on allegations of insider trading, "payoffs for the company executives who were permitted to sell" their Enron stock and "most importantly, the fact that papers were destroyed and there were instructions to do so."
"There's pretty strong evidence of insider trading, there's clear evidence of failure to file honest and correct reports," Dingell said on CBS' "The Early Show." "False accounting appears to be a very major problem."
The memo from an Andersen lawyer was uncovered by congressional investigators and was first reported by Time magazine.
Andersen, one of the nation's biggest and most influential accounting firms, disclosed last week that some documents related to Houston-based Enron had been destroyed, but the company gave no additional details.
On Sunday, after the memo became a subject on the television talk shows, Andersen released a statement acknowledging "there were internal communications that raise questions" in connection with the Enron documents.
"Andersen is committed to getting the facts and taking appropriate actions in the Enron matter," the statement said, adding that "it would be inappropriate to comment further."
Lieberman, whose Governmental Affairs Committee plans the first Senate hearings into the Enron matter on Jan. 24, said that at the time of the Andersen memo, executives of both companies knew "a corporate scandal" was brewing.
"So this kind of memo raises very serious questions about whether obstruction of justice occurred," Lieberman said on CBS' "Face the Nation." Four days after the memo, Enron disclosed a third-quarter loss of $618 million and a week later the Securities and Exchange Commission began an investigation into Enron's use of partnerships to mask losses.
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Governmental Affairs investigations subcommittee, said his panel has issued 51 subpoenas and plans to focus on the "deceptive practices" of Enron, and the failure of its auditors to raise flags about the energy company's business practices and of its directors as corporate watchdog.
"Managers (at Enron) lined their pockets with hundreds of millions of dollars of stock sales at the same time a corporation was going under, and the stockholders and employees were holding the bag," Levin said on ABC's "This Week."
Enron filed for bankruptcy on Dec. 2. By then its stock had plummeted from about $83 a share a year earlier to less than $1 a share. In recent years many Enron executives sold their stock, though some continued to hold large amounts, worth about $1.1 billion. Other Enron employees were barred from selling stock in their 401(k) retirement fund as the company's problems became more serious.
Meanwhile, two top Cabinet officers who were contacted by Enron chief executive Kenneth Lay last fall as the company was struggling to keep its credit rating from falling said they never viewed the matter seriously enough to discuss it with President Bush.
Commerce Secretary Dan Evans said that in a telephone call on Oct. 29, Lay "reached out to me" in search of ways the government might help Enron head off a possible downgrading of its credit rating. "I considered it and said, 'Thank you for the call,'" Evans said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
The next day Enron's credit rating, in fact, was downgraded.
Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill also said Lay called him about the same time, on Oct. 28, but "asked for nothing." He said Lay gave him a "heads up" that Enron was being scrutinized by ratings agencies and that his company's situation was similar to one that had faced another company in which the Federal Reserve took action to help.
Lieberman said that so far there is no evidence that the Bush administration "was somehow involved in wrongdoing in the collapse of Enron" and he saw no reason for a special counsel to investigate any connection, as some have suggested.
"There's absolutely no evidence that the Bush administration in any way did anything improper," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said on CBS.
But McCain and Lieberman said Enron's vast campaign contributions to Bush as well as to members of Congress raises questions.
"We're all tainted by the millions and millions of dollars that were contributed by Enron executives, which ... creates the appearance of impropriety," said McCain, a longtime voice for campaign finance reform.
Since 1990, Enron and its employees contributed $5.77 million to political campaigns, about three-fourths of it to Republican candidates. About half of the money was spent in the 2000 election, with Bush a major beneficiary. McCain said he received $9,500 from Enron during two Senate campaigns and Lieberman said he received $1,000 in 1994.
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December 28th, 2024
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