The University of Chicago’s loss is Tufts University’s gain.
Hearty congratulations are in order for Professor Drezner, who is one of the pioneers of the blogosphere.
Daniel Drezner lands on his feet
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Daily Archives: November 5, 2005
Tyler Cowen discovers Texas barbeque
Marginal Revolution’s Tyler Cowen has been eating Texas barbeque this week in Lockhart and he is finding it to be a very satisfying experience. Indeed, one of the many pleasures of living in Texas is taking a day to visit several of the charming small towns in the triangle formed by the cities of Houston, Austin and San Antonio, and sampling the local barbeque. One of my fondest memories from years ago is accompanying a client to several of these towns as we took a day to meet witnesses in a lawsuit I was defending for him. Each meeting took place in each town’s best local barbeque restaurant and, of course, we sampled the barbeque at every spot. To this day, I have not come up with a better way to prepare for a trial.
A snarky week in Strosland
Kevin Whited and I have been shaking our heads this week over the barbs that have been being flying to and from the Stros’ front office. The Stros’ front office hasn’t been involved in this kind of flame war since the days when the late Stros owner John McMullen teed off on former Stros general manager Tal Smith and Mr. Smith responded with a defamation lawsuit against Mr. McMullen.
This all started when former Stros General Manager Gerry Hunsicker was passed over earlier this week for the Philadelphia Phillies general manager position. Mr. Hunsicker grew up in the Philadelphia area and his tenure with the Stros coincided with the club becoming one of the most successful teams in Major League Baseball over the past decade, so he was thought to be the favorite for the Phillie job. Thus, it definitely raised some eyebrows that he was passed over for the job, particularly in favor of a 68 year old.
Signs of Desperation at the Enron Task Force?
Already having engaged in intimidation of witnesses and dubious plea-bargaining tactics, the Enron Task Force is showing signs of becoming desperate regarding its legacy case.
The Enron Task Force has now done a 180 in regard to its position toward Arthur Andersen and its former partners in connection with its legacy case against former Enron executives Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling and Richard Causey.
After having demonized the firm, prosecuted it out of business, and alleged that its partners were co-conspirators in a number of Enron-related prosecutions, the Task Force is now embracing several former Andersen partners as prosecution witnesses in the Lay, Skilling, Causey case and justifying that reliance on the Task Force’s apparently recent realization that Enron duped Andersen just like everyone else. For Andersen, the Task Force’s revisionist position regarding the firm falls squarely in the “better late than never” department.
Now, this John Emshwiller/Wall Street Journal ($) article and this Chronicle/John Roper article reveal further signs of strain in the Task Force’s case against Mr. Lay.
Although the Task Force’s filing has not yet been uploaded on the public docket of the case (the Task Force, as a part of its propaganda campaign in Enron-related prosecutions, often leaks its filings to reporters before they are filed publicly), Mr. Emshwiller reports that the Task Force filing advises the court and the parties that it intends to go into Mr. Lay’s knowledge of potential losses relating to a trading scandal in the late 1980’s that could have brought the much-smaller Enron down at the time.
Inasmuch as the indictment against Mr. Lay contends that he tried in the latter part of 2001 to cover up Enron’s growing financial problems, the Task Force is contending that Mr. Lay’s alleged similar conduct in regard to the trading scandal 14 years earlier is probative evidence of his guilt.
U.S. District Judge Sim Lake has not yet ruled whether he is going to allow the Task Force to go down that bunny trail during the trial.
Meanwhile, a perusal of the case docket reflects that the Lay-Skilling-Causey team is preparing to present an impressive array of expert witnesses in defense of the Task Force’s amorphous allegations of wrongdoing in regard to Enron’s accounting, structured finance transactions, earnings management and related matters that form the basis of the Task Force’s indictment against Messrs. Lay, Skilling and Causey.
On the other hand, other than an SEC representative and the Andersen partners who the Task Force demonized earlier, there is little indication from the docket on how the Task Force plans to establish its core theory that Enron’s legitimate business operations were a sham that Messrs. Lay, Skilling and Causey misrepresented to the investing public.
Messrs. Lay, Skilling and Causey will never win their criminal case in the court of public opinion that has been polluted by the slanted public statements of the Task Force and the mostly one-sided mainstream media accounts of the Enron scandal. However, assuming that a fair jury panel can be found, the foregoing developments represent clear signals that these men have a much better chance of winning their case in the courtroom.