President George W. Bush was aware that the oil company for which he worked was about to lose millions of dollars 16 days before selling his stock in the company in 1990, according to the Washington Post on Sunday.
In 1990, while his father, George Bush, was US president, Bush sat on the board of Houston, Texas-based oil company Harken Energy Corp. In order to repay a loan, Bush said, he decided to sell his stock in the company.
He sold only two months before Harken revealed a US$23 million quarterly loss, a transaction that drew the attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the US financial markets watch dog.
The SEC found that there was insufficient evidence to bring case of insider trading against Bush.
"I think it was handled in an appropriate way. No punches were pulled," Richard Breeden, then-chairman of the SEC who was appointed to the post by Bush's father, told Fox News Sunday as the scandal made the rounds of the Sunday morning talk shows. The president has said he will not bow to requests to release the full SEC file.
"The matter is closed," current SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt said on NBC's "Meet the Press" in the US over the weekend.
White House officials told the Washington Post that the president knew the company would lose about nine million dollars, but was himself surprised when the larger loss was posted.
Harken papers have shown that Bush, who was on Harken's audit committee, received a "weekly flash report" warning of a US$4 million loss 16 days before he sold his stock, the Post said.
Bush has stated that his only motivation to sell the stock was to repay his debts and that had he known Harken's real loss he never would have sold.
"This is nothing but political garbage that the American people are sick and tired of," Commerce Secretary Donald Evans told Fox News Sunday.
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