The Bush money machine relies primarily on a corps of "bundlers" -- chief executive officers, contractors, investment bankers and others primarily from the business, legal and medical communities. They tend to have extensive networks of employees, suppliers, subcontractors, clients and others who are receptive* to their pitch for campaign donations.
For example, one Bush bundler is E. Stanley O'Neal, chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch & Co. The Center for Responsive Politics recently reported that Merrill Lynch employees and their immediate relatives already have given the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign $264,750.
*So if you are a supplier or subcontractor of Merrill Lynch's, you would undoubtedly be "receptive" to Merrill Lynch's suggestion that you donate to Bush-Cheney 2004 in the same way that any supplier of Tony Soprano's would be to a request for contributions to his pet political cause. They call it "bundling" — we call it "extortion."
It's only 2003, and already Merrill Lynch has loosened $265,000 from its network. Imagine what they'll come up with next year.
Of course it's the right of the fine people of Merrill Lynch to donate to whatever political causes they choose — but not when their efforts are supported by organized criminal activity. Yesterday's indictments were explicitly due to the fact that "Merrill Lynch knew that the [Enron barge] 'purchase' was not real" (today's Wall Street Journal, sub. req'd):
Prosecutors said the bankers engaged in a sham transaction in late 1999 in which Merrill appeared to buy an interest in Nigerian barges from Enron that allowed Enron, now operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy-court protection, to record $12 million in earnings. In reality, the indictment states, Mr. Bayly got an oral assurance from then-Enron Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow that Merrill would get its money back with interest within six months.
"Merrill Lynch knew that the 'purchase' was not real," the indictment states.
[...]
The deal [to indict individuals and not the firm of Merrill Lynch] appeared to be aimed at preventing Merrill "from being Andersenized," said Jacob Frenkel, a former federal prosecutor and SEC attorney.
Wednesday, Justice Department officials seemed to be trying to play up the differences between Andersen and Merrill. "This is the kind of response that the DOJ encourages and frankly expects from companies in the course of a criminal investigation," said Christopher Wray, assistant attorney general for the criminal division, who later added, "There's a right way and a wrong way to respond when the government comes knocking at your door."
The problem with this is that Merrill Lynch was involved at the firm level with this grand deception, and both they and their client Enron are responsible for and beneficiaries of the administration that is dragging the United States into a horrific fiscal crisis.
And why does the Justice Department view its role in the matter as "trying to play up the differences between Andersen and Merrill"? Shouldn't the Justice Department be slightly more interested in, oh, I don't know, justice?
We also wrote about Merrill Lynch, the #1 wealth manager in the United States, yesterday.
