First, will this vaunted probe lead into Minerals Management Service as well as BP? If so, will it lead not just to career staff, but anybody appointed after Obama and Kenny Boy Salazar took over?
Answer: Not likely. DOJ will have a tough time proving criminality on BP's part. MMS won't get a look at, lest post-Obama MMS actions come on the radar.
Second, will Obama ask the Securities and Exchange Commission to get involved as well as Justice?
Answer: Not likely. That would mean that this was something serious, not just grandstanding.
Let's start with BP's claim it can shut off the Deepwater Horizon gush with relief wells, by August. Is that believable? It took 10 months to shut off the huge 1979 Mexican well blowout. Yes, technology has advanced in 31 years, but that was a shallow-water well.
A lie, if not under oath, is not criminal in the legal sense, but you know it is. So, is this another lie by BP to prop up its ever-fading stock value?
Seriously, if everybody knew it would take, say, 6 months not 2 for BP to fix this, and knowing this is affecting the U.S., not Mexico, unlike 1979, with attendant lawsuits, etc., where would you price BP's stock at? Ten bucks? Right in the heart of ExxonMobil or Shell takeover territory? Or by CNOOC or another Chinese oil company? Of course, if the suits and claims get thick enough, that could actually lessen BP's desirability as a takeover target.
In light of this, I think Robert Reich is right: We need to freeze BP's assets, at the least.
Third: That all said, a criminal probe is not the same as an incompetency probe. From President Obama through Rep. Ed Markey, the incompetence of Democratic elected officials in believing BP in specific and Big Oil in general also needs to be probed but probably won't be.
Answer: Of course not.
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