culture, politics, commentary, criticism

Wednesday, November 02, 2005
What do you think of Enron? The long, slow march to the Enron trial begins (Carrie Johnson,
WaPo):
This week, pale brown envelopes will appear in the mailboxes of 400 Texans, containing a juror questionnaire and marking the beginning of a race for control of the courtroom and public opinion in a trial that defines an era of corporate wrongdoing.

Inside each envelope is a document that could be key to the outcome of the fraud trial of former Enron Corp. leaders Kenneth L. Lay and Jeffrey K. Skilling, who will stand trial in January with former accounting chief Richard A. Causey on charges that they conspired to mislead the public about the financial health of Enron, once ranked as the country's seventh-biggest publicly traded company.

Enron's 2001 collapse was the first in a series of corporate disasters that resulted in record-breaking bankruptcies, pinstriped perp walks and lost investor confidence. It wreaked havoc in Houston and beyond, costing thousands of employees and investors their retirement savings. The Justice Department created a special prosecutorial task force to deal with the fallout after the entire Houston U.S. attorney's office removed itself from the investigation because so many of its lawyers had financial or family ties to the company.

How a Texas jury assesses the evidence against Enron's former leaders will determine its answers to key questions, including just how much executives are expected to know about their company's finances -- and whether the final chapter of an era of financial scandals will close with a bang or a whimper.

Jury selection is a key step for both sides as they try to bend the process in their favor. "Attitudes toward what jurors regard as corporate greed have an impact on the way they hear evidence," said George Washington University law professor and former prosecutor Stephen A. Saltzburg.

Defense lawyers already have gained one advantage by putting more than four years between the bankruptcy and the trial, scheduled to begin with jury selection Jan. 17. But public opinion suggests that the memory of corporate scandals has not faded. Almost half of respondents to a Pew Research Center poll last month said they felt unfavorably toward U.S. companies -- a 20-point rise from March 2001, nine months before Enron filed for bankruptcy protection.
What's significant about the four years that occurred between the bankruptcy and the trial? It happens to be the length of a presidential term, the same one that was bought with the generous assistance of Enron.

As Patrick Fitzgerald pointed out in presenting the initial results of his grand jury investigation, we could have been here a year sooner if we hadn't been stymied. Yesterday Harry Reid made the same argument with his closed session of the Senate to provoke the similarly stymied pre-war intelligence investigation. That too could have happened a year ago.

Everything that exposes the necrotic gangrene of this administration was timed to hit the air this year and not last year. Thanks for your vigilance, CBS, The New York Times, and the whole press corps!
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Greatest Hits · Alternatives to First Command Financial Planning · First Command, last resort, Part 3 · Part 2 · Part 1 · Stealing $50K from a widow: Wells Real Estate · Leo Wells, REITs and divine wealth · Sex-crazed Red State teenagers · What I hate: a manifesto · Spawn of Darleen Druyun · All-American high school sex party · Why is Ken Lay smiling? · Poppy's Enron birthday party · The Saudi money laundry and the president's uncle · The sentence of Enron's John Forney · The holiness of Neil Bush's marriage · The Silence of Cheney: a poem · South Park Christians · Capitalist against Bush: Warren Buffett · Fastow childen vs. Enron children · Give your prescription money to your old boss · Neil Bush, hard-working matchmaker · Republicans against fetuses and pregnant women · Emboldened Ken Lay · Faith-based jails · Please die for me so I can skip your funeral · A brief illustrated history of the Republican Party · Nancy Victory · Soldiers become accountants · Beware the Merrill Lynch mob · Darleen Druyun's $5.7 billion surprise · First responder funding · Hoovering the country · First Command fifty percent load · Ken Lay and the Atkins diet · Halliburton WMD · Leave no CEO behind · August in Crawford · Elaine Pagels · Profitable slave labor at Halliburton · Tom Hanks + Mujahideen · Sharon & Neilsie Bush · One weekend a month, or eternity · Is the US pumping Iraqi oil to Kuwait? · Cheney's war · Seth Glickenhaus: Capitalist against Bush · Martha's blow job · Mark Belnick: Tyco Catholic nut · Cheney's deferred Halliburton compensation · Jeb sucks sugar cane · Poindexter & LifeLog · American Family Association panic · Riley Bechtel and the crony economy · The Book of Sharon (Bush) · The Art of Enron · Plunder convention · Waiting in Kuwait: Jay Garner · What's an Army private worth? · Barbara Bodine, Queen of Baghdad · Sneaky bastards at Halliburton · Golf course and barbecue military strategy · Enron at large · Recent astroturf · Cracker Chic 2 · No business like war business · Big Brother · Martha Stewart vs. Thomas White · Roger Kimball, disappointed Republican poetry fan · Cheney, Lay, Afghanistan · Terry Lynn Barton, crimes of burning · Feasting at the Cheney trough · Who would Jesus indict? · Return of the Carlyle Group · Duct tape is for little people · GOP and bad medicine · Sears Tower vs Mt Rushmore · Scared Christians · Crooked playing field · John O'Neill: The man who knew · Back to the top






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