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US Senate panel issues subpoenas in Enron probe

A US Senate committee has issued subpoenas to Enron Corp board members to ask about their contacts with the Bush and Clinton administrations, including communications on energy policy, a committee spokeswoman said late on Friday.

The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee issued 29 subpoenas to Enron, its former auditing firm Andersen and members of the board going back to 1992, said committee spokeswoman Leslie Phillips.

The subpoenas ask them for documents about their White House contacts during the administrations of President George W Bush and former President Bill Clinton and federal agencies that regulated the bankrupt former energy giant, Phillips added.

The committee is chaired by Sen Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat.

It is the first time a congressional committee has sought to subpoena information linked to the White House since 10 House of Representatives and Senate panels began probes of Enron's collapse late last year.

But the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, has gone to court to try to get information about industry executives consulted by the Bush White House while it crafted its energy policy a year ago.

Those who will receive committee subpoenas include former Enron chairman Kenneth Lay, a longtime and generous donor to Bush's political campaigns, as well as Jeffrey Skilling, the former chief executive of the collapsed energy trader, Phillips said.

Subpoenas also were being sent to Enron director Wendy Gramm, wife of Texas Republican Sen Phil Gramm, and Lord John Wakeham, a former Conservative minister in Britain who left Enron's board last month, Phillips added.

LARGEST BANKRUPTCY IN US HISTORY

In December, Enron filed the largest bankruptcy in US history, wiping out thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in equity held by employees and other investors.

Bush has sought to distance himself from the scandal, and so far the political fallout from the company's collapse has been limited.

High-ranking Bush administration officials say Lay telephoned them asking for help last year as the company faced bankruptcy but that they did nothing and the president knew nothing about it.

Enron also lobbied the Clinton administration and donated to both political parties. A conservative public interest law firm, Judicial Watch, has charged that both administrations assisted in a huge fraud that enabled Enron to avoid regulation and oversight.

Although the information the Senate committee seeks includes contacts on the energy policy the Bush administration formulated last spring, spokeswoman Phillips denied it was trying to pull the White House into the Enron debacle.

"This is not directed at the administration, this is directed at Enron. We're looking for the story of Enron's communications with the government, with the goal in mind of keeping this from happening again," Phillips said.

The committee has issued subpoenas asking for documents related to contacts with eight federal agencies in addition to the White House.

The agencies are: the departments of commerce, energy and labor; the Export-Import Bank; the Overseas Private Investment Corp; the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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