Tom Delay: Poster Boy for the New Republican Party
At a weekly Republican policy lunch in the Senate Mansfield Room in early April, Tom DeLay rose to declare to his colleagues that he was the victim of a Democratic conspiracy, blaming financier George Soros and the grass-roots group MoveOn.org for his woes. The GOP agenda was in danger, DeLay reportedly said, because Democrats funded by Soros were targeting him in attempt to keep the party from making progress on its initiatives.
 
A letter to Houston-area voters blamed a "syndicate" of Democrats, advocacy groups and a "legion of Democrat-friendly press."
 
In recent days, however, DeLay has come under criticism from within his own party, and in the editorial pages of journals from across the political spectrum, including the Wall Street Journal.
[April 20, 2005 (Updated April 4, 2006)] Full Story

Memo emerges to haunt president (Guardian UK)
George Bush quashed evidence in the insider dealing inquiry he faced a decade ago, it was claimed yesterday, further undermining White House efforts to restore some confidence in Wall Street.
 
A memo has emerged that was sent by lawyers in 1990 that warned executives of the energy firm Harken, for which Mr Bush was a director, against cashing in stock if they had any negative information about the company.
 
Harken was undertaking financial engineering to keep it afloat at the time.
 
A week later the president cashed in $848,000 of shares...
[November 2, 2002] Full Story

The Corporate Corruption Administration
"At least you can't say Bush doesn't know what he's talking about when he admonishes corporate America to avoid breaking the rules," wrote Clarence Page in the July 7 Chicago Tribune. "He has seen it happen from the inside." Two days later Bush sternly lectured Wall Streeters that "there's no capitalism without conscience. There is no wealth without character." The speech was widely seen as an effort to get in front of the news story that had pushed the war on terrorism off the front pages: the wave of revelations of accounting irregularities that began with Enron, leading to huge restatements of corporate earnings, or outright failures. Having once called Enron the work of a few "bad apples" Bush was now warning of a threat to "our entire free enterprise system." Yet his concern might more appropriately have been for his own image, and the Republican system of values he has embraced during his entire political life, as his own dubious business practices and those of his administration came under renewed scrutiny.
[July 21, 2002] Full Story

Enron: a Metaphor for the Bush Administration
In his press conference on January 9, Ari Fleischer was asked "Can the administration say categorically that no one in the White House ever discussed Enron's financial situation with the company.?" His answer: "I'm not aware of anybody in the White House who discussed Enron's financial situation." The next day Fleischer revealed that Enron CEO Kenneth Lay had, in fact, spoken to Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill on October 28 and November 8, and with Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans on October 29. According to Fleischer, Lay discussed Enron's deteriorating financial situation with O'Neill, and asked Evans to help prevent Moody's Investor's Service from downgrading Enron debt. (Lowering the rating of Enron's debt was a contributing factor in Enron's eventual bankruptcy.) Later that day Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the Justice Department's criminal investigation of Enron's collapse, which had just been announced. He was joined by the entire Houston U.S. attorney's office. As Republicans and the administration sought to spin the Enron debacle as a bipartisan scandal, the office of Representative Henry Waxman issued a report documenting the extent to which administration policies benefited Enron. Some observers pointed to the firing of FERC chairman Curtis Hébert as a clear indication of Enron influence in the White House; others noted that the Enron scandal "threatens perceptions that the right has spent decades creating."
[January 25, 2002] Full Story

Bush's Whitewater
Appearing before the House Committee on Financial Services, on December 12, Joseph Berardino, chief executive of Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm that conducted Enron's internal and external audits, said the company had engaged in "possibly illegal acts," and had misled auditors. Berardino's appearance followed Enron's filing for bankruptcy on December 2, after years of being touted as an exemplar of corporate innovation. Berardino did not specify which laws he believed might have been violated. In a related action, the Securities and Exchange Commission went to court to force, Enron's former chief financial officer, Andrew S. Fastow, to testify in an SEC inquiry. Enron has been called "largely responsible for the grooming of George W. Bush as a national figure." Enron is Bush's top career corporate donor, with directors and employees having contributed a total of $550,025 (as of January 5, 2001). Bush economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey, and trade representative, Robert Zoellick, both served on Enron's advisory board prior to their government appointments. W's. association with Enron dates back to his father's administration when he reportedly lobbied on behalf of the firm for a pipeline contract in Argentina.
[December 17, 2002] Full Story

See also The Dubya Report's review of Bush 2000 campaign contributors, The Money Trail.