Milken Redux.

As noted in the local media, financier-philanthropist Michael Milken, the onetime junk-bond king, did not receive a pardon from departing President Clinton, as some had expected. Back in the early 1990s, Milken served two years in federal prison for securities laws violations. What was not noted locally was the churlish letter sent to Clinton late last year by Richard Walker, the Securities and Exchange Commission's director of the Washington, D.C. enforcement office. The letter may have tipped the decision against Milken.

"Few people have done more to undermine confidence in our markets," Walker wrote of Milken. He went on to decry Milken's efforts to "obstruct justice" before he pled guilty in 1991, and again when the SEC investigated alleged broker activities on his part after his release from prison.

"There is compelling evidence he gave false and misleading testimony in that investigation," Walker wrote of the SEC's second investigation.

The SEC contended that deals Milken brokered in the mid-1990s, including one joint venture between telecommunications giant MCI and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., violated a consent decree he signed with the federal agency in 1991.

In that broadly worded decree, Milken vas barred from the securities industry for life.

In 1998, the SEC had Milken disgorge $47 million in fees, which were primarily his reward for work on the MCI-News Corp. transaction. Evidently, the SEC wasn't mollified by the money, and has been stewing ever since. Walker wrote to Clinton that Milken's post-conviction conduct demonstrated his continuing contempt for the law and he dismissed any claims to rehabilitation.

Milken could not be reached for comment, but his lawyers were recently quoted as saying he never knowingly violated his consent decree or gave false testimony.