PITT STOP
With Harvey Pitt, the Bush administration’s
chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, coming under
increasing fire from Democrats, the media, and John
McCain, various Republican staffers in the House and
Senate have begun poring over the records of SEC actions during the
Clinton Administration, when Wall Street Golden Boy Arthur
Levitt chaired the commission that is now the focal point
of furor after the collapses of such investor darlings as Enron,
ImClone and WorldCom.
“Pitt is taking the heat, but all of these companies flourished
and grew under the Clinton SEC’s watch. If Democrats are going to
try to pin the ‘corporate greed’ label on us, we want to have the
ammo to throw it back in their faces,” says a Republican staffer on
the House Financial Services Committee.
There is internal debate among Republicans whether or not Levitt
should be invited before House and Senate committees to outline how
it was that companies like WorldCom and Global Crossing passed so
easily through what little SEC oversight might actually have taken
place.
Since leaving the SEC, Levitt has traveled the country and
published extensively on the need for greater oversight of
corporate America. The media have portrayed his time as SEC chair
as that of a white knight battling against the evils of Wall Street
excess and Republican attempts to de-regulate the securities
industry. Some Republicans wonder if putting Levitt under a
spotlight might not backfire, by making it appear that Republicans
are simply trying to shift blame. “You can only blame the Clinton
Administration so much,” says a Republican Senate staffer working
on the Finance Committee. “This might be one of those cases where
we keep quiet to fight another day.”
Others, though, want history righted, at least to their way of
thinking. “Levitt has come out of these scandals unscathed, and
it’s irksome,” says the House staffer. “Democrats worked hard to
make sure many of these companies that are now in question got
special consideration over at the SEC. And we weren’t in charge
back then. No one was paying attention then. Now, somehow it’s all
our fault.”
MISSISSIPPI CALLING
Speaking of WorldCom, Senate minority leader Trent
Lott was inundated with media phone calls last week asking
whether or not he would remove from his “Mississippi Wall of Fame”
Bernard Ebbers, former CEO of the
telecommunications giant. Lott’s Senate website features a number
of Mississippians who have made it big in sports, business and the
arts. Lott has told staffers he has no intention of removing
Ebbers, but another Republican big shot with Mississippi roots is
considering putting some distance between himself and the man from
WorldCom.
Former Republican National Committee chairman Haley
Barbour, mulling a run for the Mississippi governorship,
is assessing how much political damage he might suffer due to his
close relationship with Ebbers and WorldCom.
While WorldCom donated plenty of money to Democrats over the
past two electoral cycles, Barbour cultivated his friendship with
Ebbers and connection with WorldCom. “Knowing Haley, he’ll figure
out a way to turn this all into a positive,” says a longtime
acquaintance. “He has a talent for that. And apparently, so did
Ebbers. Maybe it’s a Mississippi thing.”
