Reply #47: DONOR Scandals: Who Are The Bush Pioneers & Rangers? [View All]

[L. Coyote]

Who Are The Bush Pioneers & Rangers?
The Scandal Sheet on Pioneers & Rangers
http://www.tpj.org/pioneers/pioneers04/who_scandal.html

Corporate Scandals
At least 148 of the 642 elite 2000 and 2004 Bush donors (23 percent) have been involved in corporate scandals or helped run companies involved in them. At least 100 of the 2004 elite donors (19 percent) have corporate-scandal status.

* The scandal poster boy is Enron Pioneer “Kenny Boy” Lay, who was one of 22 wealthy business leaders whom President Bush invited to lunch in 2001 to discuss his tax cut for the wealthy. Later that year, disclosures about Enron’s conflicts of interest and flimflam accounting reduced this $60 billion Wall Street darling to bankruptcy. Enron’s colossal fraud would have been impossible without the active or passive cooperation of Enron’s:
o Auditor, Arthur Anderson, which employed 2000 Pioneer Stephen Goddard as head of its Houston office;
o “Outside” law firm Vinson & Elkins, which employs two-time Pioneer Thomas Marinis; and
o Such investment banks as Credit Suisse First Boston, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch and UBS, which collectively employ 10 elite Bush donors.

Campaign Donor Scandals
At least 82 of the 642 elite 2000 and 2004 Bush donors (13 percent) have been involved in scandals that involve campaign-donor clout—either their own or that of their employers. At least 53 of the 2004 elite donors (10 percent) have ties to campaign-donor scandals.

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