From Politico
By DARREN GOODE | 7/25/13 7:15 PM EDT
Halliburton Energy Services has agreed to plead guilty to one count of destroying evidence in connection with April 2010’s Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Justice Department announced Thursday.
The one count of destruction of evidence was filed today in the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Louisiana, according to the department.
The company has signed a guilty plea agreement with the government and agreed to admit criminal conduct, DOJ said. The plea deal includes penalties such as “the maximum-available statutory fine,” being subject to three years of probation and an agreement “to continue its cooperation in the government’s ongoing criminal investigation,” the department said.
The department didn’t specify the size of the fine and didn’t immediately respond to a request for information from POLITICO.
Halliburton later released a statement Thursday night specifying that a subsidiary at the company “has agreed to plead guilty to one misdemeanor violation associated with the deletion of records created after the Macondo well incident, to pay the statutory maximum fine of $200,000 and to accept a term of three years’ probation.”
In return, the Justice Department “has agreed that it will not pursue further criminal prosecution of the company or its subsidiaries for any conduct relating to or arising out of the Macondo well incident,” according to the company’s statement.
Halliburton separately has made a voluntary $55 million contribution to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation “that was not conditioned on the court’s acceptance of its plea agreement,” according to the department.
The agreed-upon penalties are “subject to the court’s approval,” the department said.
Thursday’s news came eight months after BP agreed to pay $4.5 billion in fines — the largest such settlement in U.S. history — and plead guilty to a dozen felony counts in connection with the months-long spill, which fouled marshes and beaches across the northern Gulf Coast. However, the thicket of legal feuding continues, including BP’s efforts to challenge the handling of the court-supervised fund that is supposed to pay damages to those who suffered losses from the spill.
Halliburton’s one count of destroying evidence stems from an internal technical review that Halliburton performed on the design and construction of the Macondo well after the well ruptured in April 2010, causing a fire aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig that killed 11 workers and led to the biggest oil spill in U.S. history.
During that review, a senior program manager at Halliburton ran two computer simulations of the cementing job of the Macondo well that BP had contracted the company to perform and which was partially blamed for the subsequent blowout. The program manager destroyed the results as directed and similar evidence was also destroyed later, the department said.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/0...77.html?hp=l19
- Guest040616
- 07-26-2013, 08:41 AM
- Whirlaway
- 07-26-2013, 12:31 PM
I kind of miss the days of the left screaming........"halliburton, halliburton, Dick Cheney and halliburton"........
- JD Barleycorn
- 07-26-2013, 12:37 PM
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...20on%20Twitter
Funny about what gores your ox.
Delaware state officials have told Congress that they likely destroyed the computer
records that would show when and how often they accessed Christine O'Donnell’s personal tax records and acknowledged that a newspaper article was used as the sole justification for snooping into the former GOP Senate candidate’s tax history.
The revelations to Sen. Chuck Grassley’s office came Tuesday as the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration, the government’s chief watchdog for the Internal Revenue Service, formally reopened its investigation into the matter by re-interviewing Ms. O'Donnell.
PHOTOS: Eye-popping excuses in American political scandals
“It is an active investigation now,” Ms. O’Donnell told The Washington Times after meeting with the same Treasury agent who first informed her in January that her tax records were improperly accessed.
She declined to be more specific about what the agent questioned her about in Tuesday’s session.
But Mr. Grassley, an Iowa Republican who serves on the Judiciary and Finance
committees, said he was concerned by the information Delaware state officials shared with his investigators.
Specifically, Mr. Grassley’s staff was told that a Delaware state investigator asked for and received permission from his boss on a Saturday to access Ms. O'Donnell’s tax records based on a local newspaper article about a civil lien. The lien, it turned, out was issued erroneously.
Mr. Grassley said he was concerned that a simple newspaper article that alleged no criminal wrongdoing could be used to pierce one of America’s most protected privacies, tax information.
He is pressing for more information on what safeguards the IRS is using to stop such snooping and whether the system used by Delaware state officials may amount to an unmonitored back door into confidential IRS tax records.
“The state says it looked at Ms. O'Donnell’s federal records because of a newspaper article describing a federal tax lien against her,” Mr. Grassley said. “Does the state look at every taxpayer who faces a federal lien or only those who happen to appear in a newspaper article? Is it routine for a state employee to email his boss about looking at a taxpayer’s records on a Saturday, when the article appeared? It’s hard to evaluate what happened in the O’Donnell case without answering these questions, and I’ll continue to work to get more information.”
Mr. Grassley’s staff also was told that Delaware officials do not think they kept any of the computerized records showing when their investigators accessed Ms. O'Donnell’s tax records because such searches are stored for only three months before they are deleted or destroyed.
The access was believed to have occurred in March 2010, the same month Ms. O'Donnell formally launched her Senate campaign that shocked the Delaware establishment by defeating Republican favorite Michael Castle in the primary election.
“So far, it appears the department destroys the access records after a short amount of time,” Mr. Grassley said. “That’s puzzling. Unless the IRS has a back-up, and I hope the IRS does, there’s no way to know how and when Delaware state employees accessed Christine O'Donnell’s federal tax records.”
Mr. Grassley also noted that if records are routinely destroyed, this also would cast doubt on the state explanations.
“If the records were destroyed, it’s also hard for the state to support its statement that its record access occurred only in response to a public report, and not before,” he said.
The timing of when Ms. O'Donnell’s records were accessed remains in dispute. Even though they claim to have no records, Delaware state officials have said they believed the access occurred on March 20, 2010, only after a public story about the IRS lien against Ms. O'Donnell was published.
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...#ixzz2aAsZZvNh
Follow us: @washtimes on TwitterBut Ms. O’Donnell told The Times last week that when investigators alerted her in January that her confidential tax records were breached three years ago, they told her the date was March 9, 2010.
That date was the same day Ms. O'Donnell scheduled a news conference to announce her Senate run. It’s also the same date the IRS admitted the lien against her was mistakenly generated by a computer and sent to Delaware.
The Times reported last week that the Treasury inspector general for tax administration had discovered at least four cases in which a candidate’s or donor’s tax information was inappropriately searched.
In one case, the investigator said the violation was willful and referred it to the Justice Department, which declined to pursue the case.
Rep. Darrell E. Issa, California Republican and chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said last week he was baffled that the Justice Department declined to prosecute a government employee who apparently knowingly pried into tax records of a political candidate or donor, and that there should be a way for victims to know their rights have been violated.
Delaware state officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday, but Patrick Carter, director of the state’s division of revenue, said last week that they believe employee “properly conducted a review of federal tax records.” Mr. Carter identified the employee as David Smith, an auditor.
“A state Division of Revenue investigator accessed records on or after March 20, 2010, following information that came to the attention of the division,” Mr. Carter said in a statement. “The record access led the state revenue investigator to conclude there was no basis for further state investigation of a taxpayer and no action was taken by the state Division of Revenue against the taxpayer.”
He said that his division reviewed the accessing in December and “again found state access of the records of the taxpayer was part of a typical review and was not improper.”
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...#ixzz2aAsA8Jql
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
Funny about what gores your ox.
Delaware state officials have told Congress that they likely destroyed the computer
records that would show when and how often they accessed Christine O'Donnell’s personal tax records and acknowledged that a newspaper article was used as the sole justification for snooping into the former GOP Senate candidate’s tax history.The revelations to Sen. Chuck Grassley’s office came Tuesday as the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration, the government’s chief watchdog for the Internal Revenue Service, formally reopened its investigation into the matter by re-interviewing Ms. O'Donnell.
PHOTOS: Eye-popping excuses in American political scandals
“It is an active investigation now,” Ms. O’Donnell told The Washington Times after meeting with the same Treasury agent who first informed her in January that her tax records were improperly accessed.
She declined to be more specific about what the agent questioned her about in Tuesday’s session.
But Mr. Grassley, an Iowa Republican who serves on the Judiciary and Finance
committees, said he was concerned by the information Delaware state officials shared with his investigators.Specifically, Mr. Grassley’s staff was told that a Delaware state investigator asked for and received permission from his boss on a Saturday to access Ms. O'Donnell’s tax records based on a local newspaper article about a civil lien. The lien, it turned, out was issued erroneously.
Mr. Grassley said he was concerned that a simple newspaper article that alleged no criminal wrongdoing could be used to pierce one of America’s most protected privacies, tax information.
He is pressing for more information on what safeguards the IRS is using to stop such snooping and whether the system used by Delaware state officials may amount to an unmonitored back door into confidential IRS tax records.
“The state says it looked at Ms. O'Donnell’s federal records because of a newspaper article describing a federal tax lien against her,” Mr. Grassley said. “Does the state look at every taxpayer who faces a federal lien or only those who happen to appear in a newspaper article? Is it routine for a state employee to email
his boss about looking at a taxpayer’s records on a Saturday, when the article appeared? It’s hard to evaluate what happened in the O’Donnell case without answering these questions, and I’ll continue to work to get more information.”Mr. Grassley’s staff also was told that Delaware officials do not think they kept any of the computerized records showing when their investigators accessed Ms. O'Donnell’s tax records because such searches are stored for only three months before they are deleted or destroyed.
The access was believed to have occurred in March 2010, the same month Ms. O'Donnell formally launched her Senate campaign that shocked the Delaware establishment by defeating Republican favorite Michael Castle in the primary election.
“So far, it appears the department destroys the access records after a short amount of time,” Mr. Grassley said. “That’s puzzling. Unless the IRS has a back-up, and I hope the IRS does, there’s no way to know how and when Delaware state employees accessed Christine O'Donnell’s federal tax records.”
Mr. Grassley also noted that if records are routinely destroyed, this also would cast doubt on the state explanations.
“If the records were destroyed, it’s also hard for the state to support its statement that its record access occurred only in response to a public report, and not before,” he said.
The timing of when Ms. O'Donnell’s records were accessed remains in dispute. Even though they claim to have no records, Delaware state officials have said they believed the access occurred on March 20, 2010, only after a public story about the IRS lien against Ms. O'Donnell was published.
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...#ixzz2aAsZZvNh
Follow us: @washtimes on TwitterBut Ms. O’Donnell told The Times last week that when investigators alerted her in January that her confidential tax records were breached three years ago, they told her the date was March 9, 2010.
That date was the same day Ms. O'Donnell scheduled a news conference to announce her Senate run. It’s also the same date the IRS admitted the lien against her was mistakenly generated by a computer
and sent to Delaware.The Times reported last week that the Treasury inspector general for tax administration had discovered at least four cases in which a candidate’s or donor’s tax information was inappropriately searched.
In one case, the investigator said the violation was willful and referred it to the Justice Department, which declined to pursue the case.
Rep. Darrell E. Issa, California Republican and chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said last week he was baffled that the Justice Department declined to prosecute a government employee who apparently knowingly pried into tax records of a political candidate or donor, and that there should be a way for victims to know their rights have been violated.
Delaware state officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday, but Patrick Carter, director of the state’s division of revenue, said last week that they believe employee “properly conducted a review of federal tax records.” Mr. Carter identified the employee as David Smith, an auditor.
“A state Division of Revenue investigator accessed records on or after March 20, 2010, following information that came to the attention of the division,” Mr. Carter said in a statement. “The record access led the state revenue investigator to conclude there was no basis for further state investigation of a taxpayer and no action was taken by the state Division of Revenue against the taxpayer.”
He said that his division reviewed the accessing in December and “again found state access of the records of the taxpayer was part of a typical review and was not improper.”
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...#ixzz2aAsA8Jql
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
- Old-T
- 07-26-2013, 12:45 PM
Nice hijacking, JB RWWacko.
Delaware was wrong. Halliburton was wrong. Or do you think the DE screw-up gives H a get out of jail free card.
Last I looked there was a tax thread. Any reason you felt the need to hijack this one? Just wondering.
Delaware was wrong. Halliburton was wrong. Or do you think the DE screw-up gives H a get out of jail free card.
Last I looked there was a tax thread. Any reason you felt the need to hijack this one? Just wondering.
- JD Barleycorn
- 07-26-2013, 01:22 PM
Venom from an old poop....
Delaware is a government and beholden to the law, the constitution, and the people. Halliburton is a company beholden to the stock holders and the law. See the difference?
Delaware is a government and beholden to the law, the constitution, and the people. Halliburton is a company beholden to the stock holders and the law. See the difference?
- Guest040616
- 07-26-2013, 05:31 PM
J D (is also an) Idiot [who just happens to be I B (is a) Idiot's next of kin]:
This thread has absolutely nothing to do with Delaware tax records. In fact, there is at least one more thread in this forum specifically for that discussion.
This particular thread has absolutely everything to do with the following: "Halliburton Energy Services has agreed to plead guilty to one count of destroying evidence in connection with April 2010’s Deepwater Horizon disaster."
I am interested in hearing comments that deal specifically with the Halliburton pleading guilty issue, either for or against. Go spread your venom elsewhere and let the adults have a civil discussion for a change.
This thread has absolutely nothing to do with Delaware tax records. In fact, there is at least one more thread in this forum specifically for that discussion.
This particular thread has absolutely everything to do with the following: "Halliburton Energy Services has agreed to plead guilty to one count of destroying evidence in connection with April 2010’s Deepwater Horizon disaster."
I am interested in hearing comments that deal specifically with the Halliburton pleading guilty issue, either for or against. Go spread your venom elsewhere and let the adults have a civil discussion for a change.
- Old-T
- 07-26-2013, 05:35 PM
System burped; duplicate post
- Old-T
- 07-26-2013, 05:39 PM
Venom from an old poop....That is the stupidest defense I've read in a long time (IB excepted).
Delaware is a government and beholden to the law, the constitution, and the people. Halliburton is a company beholden to the stock holders and the law. See the difference? Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn
What the hell does DE being a state and Halliburton being a company have to do with your hijacking the thread--which is what I called you on. Yes, as you point out they ARE different, which is why you should have posted your "comment" on the other thread.
Or do you now believe that any post about any questionably legal activity is appropriate to this thread? It THAT your argument? Oh good, then let's turn this into yet another Zimmerman/Martin dung heap.
What is so wrong with staying remotely on the topic? And the topic was not Delaware.
- IIFFOFRDB
- 07-26-2013, 06:59 PM
Let me get this sumbitch back on topic...
- I B Hankering
- 07-26-2013, 08:32 PM
IB Idiot Originally Posted by bigtexMore contrition, BigKoTex?
That is the stupidest defense I've read in a long time (IB excepted).You are obviously struggling, Old-Twerp. You're tossing out all of these ideas, but you cannot settle on what your next straw man argument will be; especially, since you're such an obnoxious, simpleton, Old-Twerp.
What the hell does DE being a state and Halliburton being a company have to do with your hijacking the thread--which is what I called you on. Yes, as you point out they ARE different, which is why you should have posted your "comment" on the other thread.
Or do you now believe that any post about any questionably legal activity is appropriate to this thread? It THAT your argument? Oh good, then let's turn this into yet another Zimmerman/Martin dung heap.
What is so wrong with staying remotely on the topic? And the topic was not Delaware. Originally Posted by Old-T
- Ducbutter
- 07-26-2013, 10:45 PM
Not much to be for or against here really. Haliburton admitted destroying the results of the computer testing they did concerning the well design and cement job. Haliburton's original design called for more centralizers to be used (21) and BP reduced the # to six. The simulations were to determine whether using 21 would have made any difference. The results showed no difference. Had there been a difference it would have absolved them of some responsibility, though not all most likely. I've not been following the legal aspects of this story so I don't know if the Feds are suing Haliburton or not, but I assume they are. The admission of guilt certainly opens the door to some major damages on their part both to the Feds and to BP. Since BP was the operator they are ultimately responsible for the actions of every person that sets foot on the lease. They'll sue Haliburton, and likely Transocean, to recover on the billions they are paying.
One thing I read quite a while back was that the cement job they did was done with a very unconventional slurry that was injected with nitrogen to aerify it in an effort to reduce the hydrostatic pressure downhole. That's new technology to me, but then, I've not been on a rig floor for almost 20 years.
Ultimately, there were several things that led to the loss of well control, the loss of lives and the loss of the rig itself, but none of that would have occurred if it were not for the failure of the primary cement job.
One thing I read quite a while back was that the cement job they did was done with a very unconventional slurry that was injected with nitrogen to aerify it in an effort to reduce the hydrostatic pressure downhole. That's new technology to me, but then, I've not been on a rig floor for almost 20 years.
Ultimately, there were several things that led to the loss of well control, the loss of lives and the loss of the rig itself, but none of that would have occurred if it were not for the failure of the primary cement job.
- Guest040616
- 07-26-2013, 10:56 PM
You need to stick around, I B Idiot. Trendaway loves the competition that you and your kinfolk, J B Idiot provide.
It keeps Trendy on his toes!
It keeps Trendy on his toes!
- I B Hankering
- 07-27-2013, 04:37 AM
- Guest123018-4
- 07-27-2013, 07:40 AM
At least a corporation will admit wrong doing and face up to the charges not like the current adminsistration that does any and everything to cover up their wrong doing.
It is my understanding that what Halliburton did was erase some animations they created after the fact to try to determine what went wrong.
I am sure Dick Cheney is still pulling the strings on all of the oil companies and their service providers. The sky is falling the sky is falling.
snick......ijs
It is my understanding that what Halliburton did was erase some animations they created after the fact to try to determine what went wrong.
I am sure Dick Cheney is still pulling the strings on all of the oil companies and their service providers. The sky is falling the sky is falling.
snick......ijs
- CMIKE101010
- 07-27-2013, 08:25 AM
agree