NP - Buying Political Influence

[David Morris]

Billionaire investor George Soros was quoted yesterday as saying that Harken 
Energy Corp. purchased a Texas oil company run by George W. Bush in 1986 
because ''we were buying political influence.'' Soros owned nearly a third 
of Harken at the time the deal was made.

Soros, who runs a variety of investment funds and philanthropic 
organizations, was offering a reason why Harken purchased Spectrum 7, a 
failing oil company that was then run by Bush.

In an article posted on the Web site of The Nation magazine, David Corn, the 
magazine's Washington editor, said he happened to run into Soros at a party 
recently and asked Soros why Harken bought Bush's company.

''I didn't know him,'' Corn quoted Soros as saying. ''He was supposed to 
bring in the Gulf connection. But it didn't come to anything. We were buying 
political influence. That was it. He was not much of a businessman.''





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