Skilling blasts Congress
Former Enron CEO tells Larry King lawmakers act as judge and jury.
March 1, 2002: 11:00 a.m. ET
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NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling said he thinks Congress is acting as a judge and jury before all of the facts in the case of the bankrupt energy trader have been presented.
Skilling, in a taped interview on CNN's Larry King Live to air Friday night, said he was just as shocked as everyone else when the company collapsed and that he might have done things differently, looking back at the company's demise.
"I think looking back on things, I think given what we had at the time we made the right decisions," Skilling said. " Are there things that now in retrospect with what I've seen happen to my company, would I have done some things differently? I think we all would do a number of things differently."
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Skilling testifies before Senate. | |
Some members of Congress have said that Skilling's testimony is not believable, claiming that it is hard to see how he, as the company CEO and a graduate of Harvard Business Shool, could have missed the warning signs and misleading statements on the company's books.
In his testimony to Congress Tuesday, Skilling blamed numerous parties, from accountant Arthur Andersen to the Federal Reserve Board, for the collapse of the once powerful energy trader.
But Skilling told Larry King that he thinks Congress and the media are being unfair and pre-judging him.
"I think in many cases the judge and jury have already met and they've already convicted at this point with no trial," Skilling said. "I don't think the Congress was acting as a fact-finding entity trying to figure out what happened, which is the reason I was there."
In the interview, Skilling claimed that the part of the problem with the Congressional inquiry is the fact that it is an election year.
"It's an election year, and during an election year I guess you would expect something like that to happen, but I think the Congress is acting as judge and jury," he said.
Skilling's interview on Larry King Live will air Friday at 9 p.m. ET. 
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