ANDREW FASTOW’S allegation that the NatWest Three were involved in the financial deceits which brought down Enron does not mean the men are guilty. But it does mean that they have a case to answer — a case which is rightly being tried in the US. <br/> <br/> The US has had no particular beef with British businessmen. It seeks out suspects of white-collar crime whoever they are, wherever they are. Kobi Alexander, the chief executive of Comverse Technology, was apprehended this week in Namibia, ending his two-month flight from American law enforcers seeking to prosecute him for the back-dating of stock options. The “perp walk” — the US practice of hand-cuffing and frog-marching a multi-millionaire American executive out of his office and into a waiting police car in full view of the waiting, tipped-off camera crews — has become a regular feature of the nightly news in the US. Foreigners who do business in America know full well that the Land of the Free is not nice to criminals, nor even criminal suspects. <br/> <br/> The public outcry over the extradition of the NatWest Three — Gary Mulgrew, David Bermingham and Giles Darby — has from the outset felt like a misplaced, sometimes mendacious venting of national frustration at Washington. <br/> <br/> The fact is that this case has nothing to do with the war in Iraq, with the presidency of George W. Bush, with Tony Blair’s Atlanticist inclinations. Even the esteemed British chief executives and chairmen who signed up to the letter calling for fair trials abroad looked like suckers: their campaign seemed to put patriotism, even a huffy anti-Americanism, before the due process of law. <br/> <br/> Certainly, they had a just complaint: the British Government agreed an extradition treaty without securing reciprocity from the US. But, for that, more fool the British Government. It knows a pledge from the Administration will not necessarily be honoured by Congress, particularly involving the issue of extradition. <br/> <br/> Fastow’s claims against the three British men may be suspect. The quiet chief financial officer of Enron has made a second career for himself shopping his old acquaintances. In 2002, he was indicted on 78 counts of fraud, money-laundering and conspiracy. Thanks to his “co-operation with the authorities”, he has been sentenced to six years in prison. <br/> <br/> Nonetheless, Fastow’s legal deposition describes a “close, personal relationship” with Mulgrew. Enron collapsed in 2001, undone by an intricate, ingenious web of financial fraud. Fastow claims that, in his financial dealings with the men as late as 2000, they “knew what I expected”. The deposition seems to skewer the argument that the men should be tried in Britain. They may have to face allegations of defrauding their former British employers too, but if they played a part in Enron’s downfall, then they have a case to answer in America as well. There is a principle at stake, one which underpins global capitalism and one which is as dear to every Briton as it is to every American: respect for the due process of law.

When Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) launched his presidential campaign in January, he stopped raising money for his Hopefund, the political action committee he used to raise millions for fellow Democrats in previous campaigns. But in recent months, Obama has handed out more than $180,000 from the nearly...

McALLEN, Tex. -- During the first nine months of this year, Sen. Barack Obama raised just $2,086 for his presidential campaign from people who live in and around this border town of stucco bungalows and weed-covered farm lots, and most candidates raised even less. But Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton,...

After months of intense back-and-forth in both parties, the earliest-starting race in American campaign history is now just weeks away from a six-day sequence that appears certain to put its stamp on both the Democratic and Republican nominating campaigns. With poll numbers showing the Democratic...

PARIS (Reuters) - U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won surprise backing from the wife of former French President Jacques Chirac on Thursday, together with a pledge to join her on the campaign trail.

DIXVILLE NOTCH, N.H., Nov. 17 -- John McCain's campaign caravan rolled through the North Country's first snowstorm of the year this weekend, the start of a last-ditch effort in the state that will once again make or break his bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

CNN's Abbi Tatton reports on the DNC's online library of video tracking GOP candidates on the campaign trail.

The DNC has sent "trackers" onto the campaign trail to record the moves of Republican candidates like Rudy Giuliani, above. WASHINGTON (CNN) – The Democratic National Committee's internal archive of campaign tracking video is going public. "FlipperTV" – launched just in time for tonight's CNN/YouTube Republican presidential debate – contains dozens of raw videos of the major [...]

Romney's mail piece on abortion was roundly criticized by his Republican rivals. COLUMBIA, South Carolina (CNN) – Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's presidential campaign recently sent out a slick mail piece in South Carolina emphatically stating that Romney is "the only major presidential candidate who supports the Republican party's pro-life platform: A constitutional amendment banning [...]

The DCCC is out with a new Web ad Wednesday. WASHINGTON (CNN) – The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, looking to link high gas prices to congressional Republicans, released a new Web ad Wednesday that paints the GOP as a key ally of the oil industry. Set to the tune of the one-time Golden Girls theme [...]

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