The S.E.C. has defended the practice of allowing companies to avoid admitting or denying charges, saying that by settling with companies, it saves the commission the far greater expense — and potential risk — of fighting them in court.
Ms. Trifonova refused to acquiesce, denying charges that she and a senator were involved in a plan to sell a seat in Russia's upper house of Parliament to the head of a Russian bank for $1.5 million.
Mr. Gonzales is pulling the same trick on energy policy that Dick Cheney has pulled on antiterrorist policy: Respond to real, serious questions about the administration's actions by self-righteously denying charges that nobody is actually making.
The debate over who bears responsibility for the transfer of Pakistan's nuclear technology to other countries intensified Tuesday, with surrogates for the country's leading nuclear scientist and President Pervez Musharraf denying charges of impropriety.
In it, he robustly defended the company, denying charges that the company uses tax gimmicks and pointing out that the company has created 600,000 jobs in the US and paid $6bn in taxes to the US Treasury in 2012.
Strauss-Kahn is being held in isolation at the notorious Rikers Island in New York, having been refused bail after denying charges of a sexual assault on a 32-year-old chambermaid.
