The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee voted unanimously to force Lay to face lawmakers’ questions two days after he snubbed Congress with his refusal to appear voluntarily before the panel.
“Too many Americans have been hurt,” said Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat of Oregon, shortly before the vote, insisting that “the only way to get to the bottom of this disaster is to get to talk to (Lay).”
Some of the senators who backed the subpoena admitted Lay would likely invoke his constitutional right not to speak to the panel even if he were forced to appear, but said the sheer size of the Enron debacle compelled them to go forward.
“I bet you a dollar to a doughnut he doesn’t testify,” said Louisiana Democrat Senator John Breaux, but “that should not stop this committee from doing what is our responsibility: to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Enron’s sudden collapse on Dec 2 left thousands unemployed and wiped out the life savings held in company stock of thousands more, though top executives emerged relatively unscathed, having sold off a reported billion dollars in stock ahead of the implosion of what was once the seventh-largest US company.
“It was the path that was taken to bankruptcy that deserves our unfettered attention,” said moderate Maine Republican Senator Olympia Snowe.
“This was deception and manipulation, complicity and duplicity,” she said. “We have an obligation to the American people that we prevent this from happening in the future.”
On Monday, William Powers, an Enron board member and dean of the University of Texas Law School who prepared a damning report on the company’s dealings, maintained that Lay and other top Enron officials enriched themselves at the company’s expense in transactions that were largely concealed from the public.
Lay personally approved the arrangements under which his subordinates were permitted to engage in dealings with the partnerships, according to Powers.
“There’s no question that virtually everyone, from the board of directors on down, understood that the company was seeking to offset its investment losses with its own stock,” Powers told a House panel on Monday.
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT: The Department of Justice said on Tuesday it would not name a special counsel to investigate possible wrongdoings by collapsed energy trader Enron.
“The Justice Department sees no reason to appoint a special counsel to investigate the Enron matter,” the office of Attorney General John Ashcroft said in a statement.
“Regulations call for the appointment of a special counsel when prosecution by the department would both present a conflict of interest and serve the public interest. Neither of these criteria exist for the Department of Justice in this case. No conflict of interest exists,” said the statement.
A Justice official said Attorney General John Ashcroft has the authority to name a special counsel to determine if the opening of a criminal investigation was needed.
According to the Center for Public Integrity, Enron contributed more than 25,000 dollars to Ashcroft’s political action committee during his failed campaign to be re-elected as a senator from Missouri. The socially-conservative Ashcroft was then nominated and confirmed to the top law enforcement position in the United States.—AFP