IP: Campaign Gifts, Lobbying Built Enron's Power In Washington

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

By Dan Morgan and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, December 25, 2001; Page A01

During the administration of the first President George Bush, a new party 
fundraiser named Kenneth L. Lay was invited to spend the night at the White 
House. The sleepover was an early coup for the chairman of Enron Corp. and 
a harbinger of things to come.

Over the following decade, Lay and Enron poured millions of dollars into 
U.S. politics, cultivating unequaled access and using the entree to lobby 
Congress, the White House and regulatory agencies for action that was 
critical to the energy company's spectacular growth.

Now, with Enron's sudden bankruptcy, public attention has turned not only 
to the financial practices that brought the company down, but to what its 
far-flung political operations say about the country's campaign finance system.

<snip>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22448-2001Dec24.html

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