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Bill Clinton's Justice Department indicted the executives of Koch Industries with 97 felony counts that would have totaled more than 100 years of time in federal prison. Koch was accused of having released 91 metric tons of carcinogens into the environment in their Texas operations while Bush was Governor. But the major portion of the indictment was for attempting a cover up of the evidence from federal prosecutors and obstruction of justice. In addition, fines totalling almost one-third BILLION dollars were being levied.
When Bush came into office, one of his first acts was to offer a sweetheart deal to Koch Executives whereby they pleaded guilty to a minor offense and DID NO PRISON TIME, reducing the potential prison sentences from 100 years to ZERO, in spite of the cover up and obstruction of justice. In addition, the one-third billion in fines were reduced by Ashcroft to only $20 million. In that sense, I guess you could say that Bush prosecuted the guilty, but it more likely showed his unwillingness to hold Koch Industries accountable.
As far as Koch Industries being Republican, the are the largest privately owned energy company in the U.S. The Koch family owns Koch Industries entirely and are long-time Republicans and ONE OF THE MAJOR CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTORS to Bush during his political career. They have never contributed one penny to any Democratic candidate.
When Ari Fleischer was asked about whether George Bush would return his money from Koch's campaign contributions to him from the 2000 campaign, because the money had come from an admitted felon, Fleischer danced around it and said that it was the executives who pleaded guilty, not Koch Industries itself. The irony is that Koch Industries is wholly owned by those very same executives, the Koch brothers. Unfortunately, this major scandal which took place in the first couple of months after Bush was President receives virtually no attention, neither on DU nor anywhere else. This is Republican corruption and collusion if ever I saw it. It also suggests that if Fitzgerald gets convictions against the Bush Administration, the same sweetheart plea bargains will probably follow.
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