Thursday, June 12
Safire's column on Martha Stewart today gets it just about right. In brief:
"It twists a protestation of innocence into "lying to investors."
Last summer, a week after Waksal had been arrested for fraud, Stewart — who had been subject to a series of gleeful leaks about her impending doom — dared to tell an investors' conference that her sale of stock was perfectly legal and that she was cooperating with investigators. She also proclaimed her innocence in some detail to The Wall Street Journal.
That, charges the government, was a crime. Although common sense suggests that mounting a public defense was the natural thing to do for a person being anonymously smeared, the prosecutor reads a sinister motive into her speaking out: she was not trying to salvage her personal reputation, but was instead pumping up the price of the stock of the company that bears her name."
- posted by Anonymous @ 6:07 PM
