and then arthur anderson happens. >> right. and that's a product of the enron task force. that's a product of the enron prosecutions. i view the enron prosecutions as incredibly successful, as the right way to go about these cases. they prosecuted individuals and they worked their way up to the top. >> cohan: worldcom, successful, tyco. >> all of those. the way they did those was they focused on those cases, they flipped lower-level individuals, so you get the soldiers to flip on the copo to flip on the others and that's the way you make cases against jeff skilling or ken lay, the heads of enron, who were not putting stupid stuff in email. you don't have direct evidence against him. now they're overdependent on direct evidence and shy away from case where is they can't make those against the executives. so what happens is anderson goes down and learn this terrible long lesson which is we can never prosecute a company again. >> cohan: because they feel responsible for accountants losing their jobs. >> yes. >> cohan: who got jobs elsewhere. >> it's an extraordinary p.r. vict

because arthur anderson was a to convince readers this was justified.t to seek to rehabilitate it. because arthur anderson was a recidivist company, a corrupt institution, the handmaiden not just to enron's accounting fraud, but sunbeam, many others. william: it facilitated a lot of criminal behavior. jesse: it did indeed. with enron, they were breathtaking in their audacity by destroying documents and obstructing justice. i think corporate bookkeeping got cleaned up a little bit for a few years after that because there was a deterrent effect. that is not the lesson mary jo white learns, that eric holder learns. william: eric holder's right-hand man. jesse: the head of the criminal division at the justice department under obama and a partner of eric holder, both leave from big law firms to go to obama, then they returned to covington and burling. william: famously caught on tape in the documentary where he is espousing the holder doctrine. jesse: exactly. they internalize a different message. that this is a terrible thing, we can't put people out of wor

if you were running a senators factors, you are running one of the large energy companies but arthur anderson, and other things. you were a conservative and you have the administration on your side. ugly had this but hated big business as much, he said they were crony capitalists trying to take over the administration get friendly tax deals and yet friendly billing deals. >> nothing changes. none of the issues, i found this out, none of the issues have changed but he's got to be careful because he wants a magazine that is going to be openly pushing the administration to the right area but he also had the most popular president at that point in american history and as i pointed out, i could afford to ignore it. i could just go out, play golf, say everything's fine and the american people would agree. if you look at the gallup polls, this is what drove buckley knots and you look at eisenhower's rating , it was a steady line. i think he fell under 50 percent once in a recession for about a month and then a second time it was near the end for about a week. but it was a solid line of about 50 perc