Apparently, our vice president
was a liar before becoming Bush's puppetmaster.
Halliburton Co. secretly changed its accounting practices when Vice President Dick Cheney was its chief executive officer, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Tuesday as it fined the company $7.5 million and brought actions against two former financial officials.
The commission said the accounting change enabled Halliburton, one of the nation's largest energy services companies, to report annual earnings in 1998 that were 46 percent higher than they would have been had the change not been made. It also allowed the company to report a substantially higher profit in 1999, the commission said.
The commission did not say that Cheney acted improperly, and the papers released by the commission did not detail the extent to which he was aware of the change or of the requirement to disclose it to investors. The SEC said that Cheney had testified under oath and had "cooperated willingly and fully in the investigation conducted by the commission's career staff."
The SEC punted on the Cheney question, which comes as no surprise. Either Cheney knew of the accounting gimmick and should be held somehow liable, or he did not, and he was a terrible CEO and should return his millions in bonuses, salary, and stock compensation.
It looks like another caase for an outside investigator, but that won't happen voluntarily and there is nothing to compell such outside review.
Update: Billmon eloquently lays out the case against Cheney -- why there's no way Cheney would've been ignorant as to what was happening.