Bush’s Insider Connections Preceded Huge Profit On Stock Deal

[joeunderdog]

It has been widely reported that Texas Gov. George W. Bush made money over the years with a little help from his friends. But new details show that he served on an energy corporation’s board and was able to realize a huge profit by selling his stock in the corporation because an accounting sleight-of-hand concealed it was losing large sums of money. Shortly after he sold, the stock price plummeted. That profit helped make him a multimillionaire.

snip

Alas, a year later, in an amended 1989 annual report filed on Feb. 5, 1991, the company reported that after “discussions” with the SEC, which insisted that Harken use the traditional “cost recovery’’ method of accounting, it was revising its declared 1989 net loss of $3,300,000 fourfold--to $12,566,000. Harken also filed an amendment to its third quarter report for 1989 revealing that over the first nine months of that year it had lost nearly $4 million, rather than the $4.6 million profit it had declared.
snip

The SEC can prosecute company officers for willfully filing fraudulent reports. But in the Harken case, as in most similarly questionable filings, the investigation was conducted by the agency’s accounting staff, which did not believe there was intent to defraud and therefore did not refer the matter to the SEC’s enforcement division. Instead, the agency directed the company to publicly correct its reports, according to a retired SEC official familiar with aspects of the case.

snip

The corporate fog did not, however, obscure the fact that by the time the SEC directed Harken to recast its 1989 report, Bush already had already sold his stock in the company.

This old story absolutely deserves closer scrutiny, given our new-found passion for prosecuting insider trading--er, ah, at least lies about it, anyway. More about just where Anderson Accounting pioneered and developed Enronian methods, how the nickname "Shrub" was derived out of a company called Arbusto, why it pays to have your father's ex-lawyer be the SEC investigator, and how Martha Stewart is just a small fish in a sea of sharks...
http://www.public-i.org/story_01_040400.htm

[Cobalt Violet]

1. The media is out to lunch.

I agree this story does deserve closer scrutiny. At least as much scrutiny as Janet Jackson's boob got. But where is our media?

[PartyPooper]

2. Oh, how I had hoped Junior would be prosecuted for this crime.

But, alas, he's a Republican...and, there's the ever-pesky statute of limitations! So, he will never see the inside of a prison cell. Not this time. Aaargh!

:evilfrown:

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

3. Yep, everything is out there, all it takes is someone with the

right connections and big enough balls to take advantage of it.

In other words, it won't be done by an American media person.

[punpirate]

4. It's not exactly "new" news....

Most of this has been reported previously, including the fact that the SEC management and investigators responsible for determining the status of Dubya's filings were personal friends of either himself or his father, who was president at the time.

Bush needed the money from the stock sale to invest in the Texas Rangers' sale. That could have been his original impetus for selling the stock. But, he was a member of the company's auditing committee, and would have had knowledge of the company's overall health at the time of the sale. The fact that he was so late in filing the necessary documents of the sale only complicates the matter--he's blamed the company's lawyers for failing to file the forms, but it was his responsibility to do so.

Everything Bush has said about this matter skirts the truth, evades the real issues and tries to minimize the effect of his actions. It's too late to prosecute him, but I'd still like to see him pinned down on the matter, like a bug in an entomology lab project....

[unblock]

5. interesting how this is getting coverage NOW

there's nothing new here, all this was known 4 years ago.

this is why i think political scandals are usually red herrings. 4 years ago, shrub was in, the media was bought, so the scandal was sat upon, even if reporters knew all about it.

the scandal isn't what brings the politician down in the sense that it may be the bullet, but it's not the finger on the trigger. the powers that be have decided that bush is no longer to be protected, matbe even they've decided to get rid of him.

so 'all of a sudden', out come the scandals, as if it were news.


but don't think i'm complaining. if bush goes, i'm happy.

[Joanne98]

6. Crooked, liars.

I'm so glad Kerry said that.:)

[maggrwaggr]

7. Bush is dangerous in part because he's on borrowed time

he's gonna end up in jail and he knows it, so he's doing as much damage as possible beforehand.

and we want to wait till Jan. 20th to get him out of power?

Blech!
:puke:

[fearnobush]

8. no worries, it has 8 months to fester.

Don't want to shoot off all your cannons in one volly.

[teryang]

9. JebFRAUD is even dirtier

...if that's possible. As trustee of the state pension fund he allowed a 300,000,000.00 purchase of enron stock just prior to its collapse, when accounting irregularities were already being reported.

Such a huge purchase just prior to a stocks collapse involves major breaches of due diligence and fiduciary duties as a trustee, if not outright fraud. Any second year law student knows that the trustees are personally liable for neglect in a case like that.

[TahitiNut]

10. That article is dated April 4, 2000

(Note the copyright at the bottom and the URL.)

[Stephanie]

11. Martha should sue on the grounds of Equal Protection Under the Law

Right?

That's the premise bush used to steal the election.

And Martha is going to prison for something bush did and then didn't even report he had done it for six months. While his father was the president. And the SEC looked into and didn't rule but made clear that the case could be looked into again in future.

Why should Martha pay if Bush didn't?

[Moderator]

12. Not even remotely LBN

Years old. Locking.