Sen. Byron L. Dorgan, who chaired the Commerce Committee hearings that delved into Enron accounting irregularities, wants to know what’s taking the Department of Justice so long to bring charges against Enron executives.

The public has seen other corporate executives “taken away in handcuffs” in recent months, Dorgan said in a letter Friday to Attorney General John Ashcroft. “I am writing to ask why no action has been taken against those who were responsible for illegal activities at the Enron Corp.”

While “I recognize that it is the job of the Justice Department, not the Congress, to conduct the criminal investigations,” Dorgan noted “there is already so much information on the public record about wrongdoing” by the company and its former executives. “I hope we can count on there being an aggressive investigation underway that will bring to justice those who have broken the law.”

The accounting scandal and other irregularities that toppled the once-powerful energy giant first surfaced nearly a year ago. Top executives fell like dominoes, either being fired or resigning, with the company sliding into bankruptcy in December 2001. Enron investors, who lost millions of dollars when the company collapsed, are waiting for Justice to take action against former Enron bigwigs Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling and Andrew Fastow.

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