From Left Coaster:
It would appear that Bush believes that corporations can defraud the public with impunity. Now to be honest I always felt that was Bush's position but I didn't expect him to be so open about it. Robert Borosage has the details.
The Stoneridge v. Scientific-Atlanta case is currently before the supreme court and the decision in this case will directly impact the victims of Enron. The Securities and Exchange Commission recommended that the Justice Department support defrauded investors in their appeal to the Supreme Court. In addition, briefs in support of the defrauded investors were filed by dozens of state attorneys general, by the Council of Institutional Investors and some of the nation’s largest pension funds.
However, the U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement has decided not to support the investors.
And this spear carrier for the right got his marching orders from the top. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson called directly and arranged for President Bush to weigh in personally.
The intervention of the treasury secretary and the president is hardly business as usual—particularly since neither Paulson nor President Bush are neutral observers either. Paulson is the former chairman of Goldman Sachs, a named defendant on the Enron case. And Enron and CEO “Kenny Boy” Lay were George Bush’s leading supporters, contributing cash, the corporate plane and fundraising energy to Bush’s rise.
The president, according to his chief economic advisor, Al Hubbard, ''believes that it's important to make certain that we reduce the unnecessary lawsuits because that's a very big burden to the economy, which adversely impacts investors.”
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