Money & Politics

Making connections between U.S. corporate and political interests involved Iraqi reconstruction, monitoring for price gouging, rigged and no-bid contracts, and scrutinizing the DoD's procurement policies is as American as apple pie. But in today's Iraq, carpetbags are more likely to be filled with Glock 9mm pistols or HK MP5 submachine guns rather than cheap cigars or crooked contracts. U Read More

It has been a wrenching professional and personal reversal for Michael Kopper, who three years ago became the first Enron executive to plead guilty to criminal charges and cut a deal with the government. Mr. Kopper was also the first high-ranking Enron employee to publicly admit to lying and stealing - in his case, more than $16 million - from the company. Read More

A Knight Ridder investigation shows the number of major fines has dropped and the dollar amounts have plunged. But deaths and injuries from accidents are near record-low levels in recent years. Read More

With the same logic that dictates that logging is good for trees, the 5 years of the Bush Administration has rolled back regulations on mine safety at the bidding of mining corporations. The head of the Mining Healthy and Safety Administration is himself a former mining executive. A New York Times article in August 2004 noted: Read More

Four years after the company's ignominious collapse, Enron's former top executives are about to head to a climactic criminal trial later this month, serving as a reminder that changes in the behavior of many American companies have been more muted than many once expected. Read More

The decision by Mr. Abramoff to cooperate in a broadening federal inquiry reaching deep into Mr. DeLay's inner circle led some influential Republicans on Wednesday to issue new calls for Mr. DeLay to abandon his goal of regaining his post. Read More

The Internal Revenue Service said Thursday it had told a contractor to stop sending the agency information about political party affiliation in databases used to track down delinquent taxpayers. Read More

Prosecutors intend to argue that former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling attempted to deceive the Securities and Exchange Commission in a deposition he gave soon after the company's bankruptcy about his reason for selling 500,000 shares of Enron stock, according to a motion filed in a Houston federal court Tuesday. Read More

A day after he pleaded guilty to three felony counts in Washington, Jack Abramoff, a once prominent Republican lobbyist, pleaded guilty today to two felony charges of conspiracy and fraud in a case stemming from his purchase of a casino boat line in 2000. Read More

The plea bargain last week by former Enron Chief Accounting Officer Richard Causey gives federal prosecutors the chance to present a shorter and less technical case against former company Chairman Kenneth Lay and former President Jeffrey Skilling. The pair's trial on conspiracy, fraud and other charges is scheduled to start in Houston on Jan. 30. Read More