Wednesday, March 24, 2004

When someone says Martha Stewart had it coming, you gotta ask

aren't there bigger crooks out there in dire need of investigation?

CBS News | Bush Sold Stock Despite Promise | July 16, 2002пїЅ15:01:38: "(CBS MarketWatch) Two and a half months before George W. Bush sold his stock in Harken Energy Corp., he signed a 'lockup' letter promising to hold onto the shares for at least six months, according to internal company documents obtained by the Washington Post.

The Post reported late Tuesday that the letter, signed by Bush on April 3, 1990, is now being compared with the account his lawyers gave federal securities regulators who examined the stock sale as a possible insider trade.

According to the Post story, the letter Bush signed promising to hold onto the stock was released by the Securities and Exchange Commission under the Freedom of Information Act. At the time he signed it, Harken was considering a public stock offering to raise money to solve a cash flow problem.

The President's lawyers have said that Bush had a pre-existing plan to sell his stock in Harken and other companies to pay a tax bill and a loan he owed for his stake in the Texas Rangers ball team.

In June 1990, Bush sold about $850,000 in shares of Harken, just weeks before the oil and gas company reported an unexpected loss. Eventually, the SEC forced Harken to restate its financials to show a loss of $12.6 million for 1989, disallowing the accounting it used for the sale of a subsidiary to a group of insiders."

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