|
|
|||
|
|||
|
|
Congress Finally Ready to Investigate Global Crossing Wes Vernon, NewsMax.comWASHINGTON – After a series of NewsMax exposés on the Global Crossing scandal and the lack of media attention to it, Congress is now preparing to investigate the bankruptcy of the telecom giant. The House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, chaired by Rep. Sue Kelly, R-N.Y., plans to hold a hearing March 21. The panel, in announcing the session, outlines the reasons for its concern. And they reflect very badly on the company. The committee’s press release says Global Crossing’s demise, "the fourth largest bankruptcy in American history, resulted in the loss of 9,000 jobs,” closed 71 offices and resulted in "a meltdown in the value of the employees’ 401(k) plans as the stock fell from a high of $64 a share to 30 cents before the company filed for bankruptcy.” Heard all this before? That’s precisely what the uproar over Enron is all about. And here’s another Enron-like replay: The committee notes that "top executives sold over $1.3 billion in company stock from 1999 through last year, and the company made last-minute lump-sum executive pension payouts totaling $15 million.” But get this (again from the committee’s release): "The company also moved up its last payday by a week, so executives and others still employed could get paid before the company declared bankruptcy, while severance checks to employees already laid off weren’t paid or bounced.” The top brass made off with $15 million while employees didn’t even get their severance pay! Says the committee: "Questions have now arisen whether the company, applying accounting principles used in the telecommunications sector, falsely inflated revenues and its stock price when it swapped fiber-optic capacity with other networks.” There are two other angles to this scandal that the committee does not mention in its announcement.
McAuliffe took his money off the table before the firm went under and just before he introduced Global Crossing CEO Gary Winnick to then-President Bill Clinton and before Winnick donated $1 million dollars to the Clinton library. Does the committee intend to look into that? "We don’t rule it in or out,” subcommittee spokeswoman Peggy Peterson told NewsMax.com. One of the panel’s 20 members may decide to bring it up either in questioning witnesses or in their opening statements, she said.
If the California lawmaker doesn’t get satisfaction there, you can look for him to take his case to the International Relations Committee, of which he is a member. That phase of the scandal may not come up Thursday because the Financial Services panel’s jurisdiction is the financial markets. The witness list will be announced later. It will be interesting to see what kind of coverage the mainstream media gives the hearing. They have been very aggressive in covering other corporate scandals. Democrats seem to have given up trying to tie the Enron mess around President Bush’s neck, especially after being embarrassed by revelations of Enron connections with the Clinton administration. Global Crossing covered bases in both parties. But its heaviest weight was on the Democrat side of the aisle, of which the McAuliffe bonanza is a mere tip of the iceberg. And the story doesn’t end there. Published reports indicate members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee have written Global Crossing asking for a long laundry list of information and documents. Stay tuned.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
A product that might interest you: |
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
| All Rights Reserved © 2009 NewsMax.Com |