White House Acknowledges Enron Meetings

by Karen Gullo, Associated Press, 10 Jan 2002

 

WASHINGTON -- Enron Chairman Kenneth L. Lay reached out to two of President Bush's Cabinet officers when the energy company was collapsing, the White House disclosed today as the Justice Department opened a criminal investigation of Enron's bankruptcy.

Bush, who received significant campaign contributions from Lay and other Enron executives, said he himself has never discussed Enron's financial problems with its embattled corporate chairman. The president said he last saw Lay in Texas at spring fund-raiser for former first lady Barbara Bush's literacy foundation.

Lay also was among a group of some 20 business leaders who came to the White House early in the Bush administration to discuss the state of the economy, Bush said.

Many Enron employees lost their life savings when the company filed for bankruptcy Dec. 2.

"What anybody's going to find out is that this administration will fully investigate issues such as the Enron bankruptcy, to make sure we can learn from the past and make sure workers are protected," Bush said.

But Lay did seek the ear of other top-level administration officials last fall.

According to White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, Lay telephoned Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill amid Enron's collapse "to advise him about his concern about the obligations of Enron and whether they would be able to meet those obligations."

Lay also told O'Neill that Enron "was heading to bankruptcy," Fleischer said.

O'Neill received calls from Lay on Oct. 28 and Nov. 8, said Treasury spokeswoman Michele Davis. It was on Oct. 16 that Enron made its stunning disclosure of a $638 million third-quarter loss.

In a separate phone call to Commerce Secretary Don Evans, Lay similarly worried that the company might have to default on its obligations. He brought to the secretary's attention "that he was having problems with his bond rating and he was worried about its impact on the energy sector," Fleischer said.

After that conversation, Evans spoke to O'Neill "and they both agreed no action should be taken to intervene with their bond holders," Fleischer said.

The spokesman had said Wednesday he did not know of anyone in the White House who discussed Enron's financial situation.

Fleischer also brushed aside talk of any conflict in the Justice Department investigation and said there was no reason to turn the probe over to a special counsel.

Lay gave $25,000 to a leadership committee headed by then-senator and now Attorney General John Ashcroft, according to the Center for Public Integrity.

An attorney for Enron welcomed Ashcroft's inquiry, the latest in a series of governmental probes into the company's demise, saying the investigation would "bring light to the facts."

"We want to get to the bottom of this too," said Robert Bennett, a Washington attorney representing the Houston-based company. "A lot of decent and honorable people work at Enron and we should wait until the facts are out."

The Justice Department is forming a national task force to look into the company's dealings. The group will be headed by lawyers at the department's criminal division and include prosecutors in Houston, San Francisco, New York and several other cities, said a Justice Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The official declined to say when the investigation began. Enron faces civil investigations by the Labor Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission and subpoenas from congressional committees.

All are looking into the energy trading company's collapse, the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history.

The failure hit employees and investors hard. Workers were prohibited from selling company stock from their Enron-heavy 401(k) retirement accounts as the company's stock plummeted. Many lost their life's savings.

Enron executives cashed out more than $1 billion in stock when it was near its peak.

Former Enron chief executive Jeffrey Skilling, who left the helm nearly two months before the company's swift descent, welcomes the investigation, said spokeswoman Judy Leon. Skilling has said he had no idea, despite Enron's falling stock values, that the company was on the brink of failure.

Formed in 1985, Enron had 20,000 employees and was once the world's top buyer and seller of natural gas and the largest electricity marketer in the United States. It also marketed coal, pulp, paper, plastics, metals and fiber-optic bandwidth.

One likely focus of the Justice Department investigation is possible fraud based on Enron's heavy reliance on off-balance-sheet partnerships which took on Enron debt. The partnerships masked Enron's financial problems and left its credit ratings healthy so it could obtain the cash and credit crucial to running its trading business.

The Houston-based company went bankrupt after its credit collapsed and its main rival, Dynegy Inc., backed out of an $8.4 billion buyout plan late last year.

Just a year ago, stock of Enron, the nation's largest buyer and seller of natural gas, traded at $85 per share. Today it is less than $1.

Lay has close ties to Bush and his father, the former president. Lay was a top contributor to the younger Bush's 2000 presidential campaign.

The company played a key role earlier this year when a White House task force met with business executives and other interests to fashion a national energy policy. The task force was headed by Vice President Dick Cheney.

© 2001 Associated Press
Reprinted for Fair Use Only.