Bush pledges 'financial crimes SWAT team'

PRESIDENT George Bush travelled to the heart of corporate America yesterday to the call for stiff new penalties for financial criminals and a crackdown on boardroom scandal.

He promised, in a speech on Wall Street, that he would “end the days of cooking the books, shading the truth and breaking our laws”.

Confronting a wave of corporate wrongdoing that has undermined investor confidence and threatened political damage to the White House, Bush said, “We will use the full weight of the law to expose and root out corruption.”