Enron Trial

The Washington Post has a nice recap of yesterday's opening arguments. From the prosecution:

The Enron story is a simple one, Assistant U.S. Attorney John C. Hueston told the jury in his opening argument in the criminal trial of the energy trader's former top two executives. "It is not about accounting. It is about lies and choices."

Hueston argued that former chairman Kenneth L. Lay and chief executive Jeffrey K. Skilling helped keep the "ticking time bomb" going as long as they could for their own benefit until Enron Corp.'s 2001 collapse.
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As the alleged fraud was being carried out, Fastow got what amounted to a "bear hug" from Skilling, prosecutors said, encouraging him to engage in deals that helped Enron's finances but also helped Fastow earn more than $25 million at the company's expense. Skilling gave David W. Delainey, another government witness, "a hug and a kiss" after Delainey revealed he had stored away revenue that Enron used to make its books look better, prosecutors said.

And from the defense:

as few documents have emerged tying Lay and Skilling to the scheme -- a point on which defense lawyers pounced.
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cooperating witnesses were themselves either villains or victims of pressure to plead guilty to avoid decades-long prison sentences.
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"The value of that kind of witness is zero."

Another interesting aspect of the Enron trial is that Lay is going to have to defend himself on fraud charges stemming from his personal finances. Lay's personal finances are quite analogous to Enron's finances. He had several loans that were tied to the stock price, same as Enron. I definitely think that if he committed a crime it would be in that case, not the Enron case. Skilling, in my opinion is just as responsible in the Enron case because he knew that the loans were built on a house of cards, once the stock price started to fall there was no other collateral that Enron could offer it's creditors and Enron would default. Skilling knew this, he knew what Fastow was doing, Lay did not.

So the question is "What's Greta covering?" The answer is something about George Smith. I have absolutely no idea who George Smith is. Why does Fox News have Greta's 'legal' show on if she doesn't cover the most important trial going on?