Department of Justice Wall Street Fraud Convictions

[NickTheCage]

Clinton +1,000

Bush +1,300

Obama 0

Why Can't Obama Bring Wall Street to Justice? - Newsweek and The Daily Beast

Why Can't Obama Bring Wall Street to Justice?
May 6, 2012 1:38 PM EDT

Despite his populist posturing, the president has failed to pin a single top finance exec on criminal charges since the economic collapse. Are the banks too big to jail—or is Washington’s revolving door at to blame? Peter J. Boyer and Peter Schweizer investigate:

Obama’s 2009 White House summit with finance titans, in which the president warned that only he was standing "between you and the pitchforks"

Why, despite widespread outrage, financial-fraud prosecutions by the Department of Justice are at 20-year lows

Attorney General Eric Holder’s lucrative ties to a top-tier law firm whose marquee clients include some of finance’s worst offenders

[NickTheCage]

Why Goldman Sachs, Other Wall Street Titans Are Not Being Prosecuted - The Daily Beast

The news is likely to raise the ire of the political left and right, both of which have highlighted one of the most inconvenient facts of Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department: despite the Obama administration’s promises to clean up Wall Street in the wake of America’s worst financial crisis, there has not been a single criminal charge filed by the federal government against any top executive of the elite financial institutions.

Why is that? In a word: cronyism.

Take Goldman Sachs, for example. Thursday’s announcement that there will be no prosecutions should hardly come as a surprise. In 2008, Goldman Sachs employees were among Barack Obama’s top campaign contributors, giving a combined $1,013,091. Eric Holder’s former law firm, Covington & Burling, also counts Goldman Sachs as one of its clients. Furthermore, in April 2011, when the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations issued a scathing report detailing Goldman’s suspicious Abacus deal, several Goldman executives and their families began flooding Obama campaign coffers with donations, some giving the maximum $35,800

To be sure, financial fraud of any kind is wrong and should be prosecuted. But locking up “pygmies” is hardly the kind of financial-fraud crackdown Americans expected in the wake of the largest financial crisis in U.S. history. Increasingly, there appear to be two sets of rules: one for the average citizen, and another for the connected cronies who rule the inside game.

That could be changing, as critiques of Eric Holder’s lack of financial prosecutions have now come from the political left and right; indeed, battling cronyism may represent one of the rare points of common ground in today’s fractious political environment. As progressive Richard Eskow of the Huffington Post recently wrote: “More and more Washington insiders are asking a question that was considered off-limits in the nation's capital just a few months ago: Who, exactly, is Attorney General Eric Holder representing? As scandal after scandal erupts on Wall Street, involving everything from global lending manipulation to cocaine and prostitution, more and more people are worrying about Holder's seeming inaction—or worse—in the face of mounting evidence.”

Will bipartisan outrage boost the decibels in D.C. loud enough for Holder to hear and heed? We’ll see. He’s got at least three months to get moving

[govtstatistic]

The Market Is Rigged Anyway
Other Countries Have Already Straightened, Or Attempted To Straighten Their Markets Out
Chinese companies pull out of US stock markets - Yahoo! Finance

[govtstatistic]

Sorry I Have Misrepresented The Question , But Seems Stories Like These Are More Prevalent (numerous)
(UNACCOUNTABILITY)

The judge also said the plaintiffs did not show that directors acted in bad faith in letting Goldman repay $10 billion
taken from the Troubled Asset Relief Program early, in June 2009, freeing the bank from restrictions on executive pay.
Follow Reuters


UPDATE 2





The case is a derivative lawsuit brought on behalf of Goldman, seeking changes in governance and internal controls, and with any payout going to the Wall Street bank rather than to shareholders

Justice Department drops Goldman financial crisis probe


Well at least we know that this idea is to big to fail

[OffenseTaken]

Clinton +1,000

Bush +1,300

Obama 0

Why Can't Obama Bring Wall Street to Justice? - Newsweek and The Daily Beast

This might not have been so obvious when the article was written back in May, but investment bankers have not been supporting Obama this year. Whatever the reason—maybe bitterness over Dodd-Frank, maybe the appearance of a candidate whom Wall Street trusts as one of their own—Goldman can no longer be called a crony of the White House.

In fact, if there's a political motive in the non-prosecutions, that could very well be it: that the Obama people are too scared of pissing off Wall Street more than they already have.

[Politburo]

Clinton +1,000

Bush +1,300

Obama 0

Another lie, liar.

Raj Rajaratnam/Galleon Group, Anil Kumar, and Rajat Gupta insider trading cases - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bernard Madoff - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (charged March 11, 2009 The United States Department of Justice - United States Attorney's Office)

The Scam Wall Street Learned From the Mafia | Politics News | Rolling Stone (http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f280500/280591.pdf)

Jury convicts Ind. financier in $200M fraud scheme | Fox News

[FKD19124]

who's a liar?

Another lie, liar.

Raj Rajaratnam/Galleon Group, Anil Kumar, and Rajat Gupta insider trading cases - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bernard Madoff - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (charged March 11, 2009 The United States Department of Justice - United States Attorney's Office)

The Scam Wall Street Learned From the Mafia | Politics News | Rolling Stone (http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f280500/280591.pdf)

Jury convicts Ind. financier in $200M fraud scheme | Fox News

[NickTheCage]

Clinton +1,000

Bush +1,300

Obama 10

Why Can't Obama Bring Wall Street to Justice? - Newsweek and The Daily Beast

oooops ... edit for Politburo as I was speed reading didn't see "zero large financial institutions"

Three older Connecticut women were arrested on federal criminal charges related to
“gifting tables” they were running in suburban Connecticut.
• In March 2012, The Task Force sent a property appraiser in Washington, D.C. to jail
for 65 months for fraudulently inflated prices in a scheme to “flip” properties. They
netted around $1 million in the scheme.
• Two health care software company executives got 13 and 15 years for fraud,
including their raid of Custodial Health Care Expense Accounts.
• A resident in Florida was charged and sentenced to 14 months in federal prison for
obstructing an SEC investigation by falsifying documents.
• Five people in California were charged in December with bid rigging over
Foreclosure Auctions. They are being charged with violating the Sherman Act and face
up to 10 years in jail.
• Federal officials went after ten people in Las Vegas for attempting to “fraudulently
gain control of condominium homeowners’ associations in the Las Vegas area so that
the HAOs would direct business to a certain law firm and construction company.”
• The owner of a Miami company got 46 months in prison for a scheme to defraud the
U.S. Export-Import Bank. He created fraudulent loan applications.
• Four people in Tacoma, Washington were indicted for conspiracy that resulted in the
failure of a small bank. They made “false statements on loan applications, false
statements to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.”4

So lets make that 10; Nary a financial institution of any significance.

Clinton years.
Clinton’s Department of Justice prosecuted over 1,800 S&L executives, senior officials, and directors, and over 1,000 of
them were sent to jail.5

The number three in George W. Bush’s Department of justice formerly served as an attorney at the IRS, and a U.S. Attorney from the Southern District of Manhattan directed
Bush’s Task Force. That Task Force did not exempt Jeffrey Skilling and Ken Lay from jailtime, although Lay died before he was sentenced. Between 2002 and 2008, this task force obtained over 1,300 corporate fraud convictions, including those of over 130 corporate vice presidents and over 200 CEO and corporate presidents

The Obama Department of Justice has not filed a single criminal charge against any top executive of an elite financial institution. Attorney General Holder, Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli, Associate Attorney General Tony West, and Deputy Associate Attorney General Karol Mason all came to the DOJ from prestigious white-collar defense firms, where they represented the very financial institutions the DOJ is supposed to investigate. Top DOJ officials played prominent roles in his 2008 campaign. Holder co-chaired the
campaign with Tony West, the DOJ’s third highest official. No other modern administration has staffed the DOJ with big money fundraisers. Holder
bundled $50,000 for Obama’s 2008 campaign, while Perrelli, West, and Mason all bundled $500,000 for the campaign. West also helped raise an estimated $65 million in California.

[Politburo]

oooops

Another lie, it wasn't an oops, because you certainly weren't asserting that Clinton and Bush both prosecuted 2,300+ "large financial institutions". (ETA: the 2,300 number is also uncited)

So lets make that 10; Nary a financial institution of any significance.

Your own source (uncited) states more than 10. So another lie.

[NickTheCage]

No One Will Be Charged With a Crime for the MF Global Collapse - Business - The Atlantic Wire

Authorities are winding down their criminal investigation of the failed brokarage firm, MF Global, and despite the lack of oversight and the loss of more than $1 billion in customer funds, it now seems unlikely that anyone at the firm will face criminal charges.

The New York Times is reporting this morning that after ten months of investigation by federal prosecutors, sources say there isn't even enough evidence to charge any of the firm's executives in a criminal probe. The company may have failed spectacularly when it came to oversight and risk management, but the losses cannot be chalked up to outright fraud.

The company placed a grossly outsized bet (more than $6 billion worth) on the health of the European debt market last year and when it went south, the firm "borrowed" money from the accounts of its customers to try and salvage its own losses. Most of the blame for those trades fell on its CEO (and ex-New Jersey governor) Jon Corzine, and while his reputation and firm are ruined, it seems he will escape any legal sanction. He could still face massive civil lawsuits or fines from regulators who have a lower standard than a criminal prosecution, but jail isn't in the cards.

[Politburo]

You can change the subject but that doesn't change your lies.

[NickTheCage]

Another lie, it wasn't an oops, because you certainly weren't asserting that Clinton and Bush both prosecuted 2,300+ "large financial institutions". (ETA: the 2,300 number is also uncited)



Your own source (uncited) states more than 10. So another lie.

http://g-a-i.org/wp-content/uploads/...eport-8-61.pdf

The report said Zero...large financial institutions and I overlooked the rest of the sentence when I first read it. Can you please point to me where I said the Clinton and Bush convictions were all large financial institutions?



I notice how all you have done is ‘pick’ at my words and a small error which does not change my point. You try to slam sources, on of the being the dailybeast.com which is far from a conservative site, yet you haven’t even attempted to justify Obama's lack of action. All you are doing is trying to deflect from the actual issue while ignoring the faults of your Ideological Master.

[NickTheCage]

You can change the subject but that doesn't change your lies.

Yea MF and its CEO have nothing to do with the converstaion
Corzine was just borrowing a couple of shekels

[NickTheCage]

This might not have been so obvious when the article was written back in May, but investment bankers have not been supporting Obama this year. Whatever the reason—maybe bitterness over Dodd-Frank, maybe the appearance of a candidate whom Wall Street trusts as one of their own—Goldman can no longer be called a crony of the White House.

In fact, if there's a political motive in the non-prosecutions, that could very well be it: that the Obama people are too scared of pissing off Wall Street more than they already have.

Does a tiger ever change their stripes?

[five apples]

Nick, I would think you would like this, I mean laws are just regulations that burden freedom and free markets.

But yes, it is disappointing.

[NickTheCage]

Nick, I would think you would like this, I mean laws are just regulations that burden freedom and free markets.

But yes, it is disappointing.

LOL ... I'm a limited govt guy not an anarchists

Fraud is a burden to freedom and the free market .. see ken lay and enron

[Politburo]

I notice how all you have done is ‘pick’ at my words and a small error which does not change my point. You try to slam sources, on of the being the dailybeast.com which is far from a conservative site, yet you haven’t even attempted to justify Obama's lack of action. All you are doing is trying to deflect from the actual issue while ignoring the faults of your Ideological Master.

It's not a "small error" when you allege that an administration has gotten literally zero convictions while asserting previous administrations have gotten thousands. It's a very large error. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and you presented none until I called you on it.

Thing is, if you had just said Obama isn't tough enough on wall street, I fully agree, and you will note I did not dispute anything in the Daily Beast article.

But instead you invented some statistic (or incorrectly pulled it from an previously-uncited report, apparently), that just isn't gonna fly.

[phillyaggie]

The Market Is Rigged Anyway
Other Countries Have Already Straightened, Or Attempted To Straighten Their Markets Out
Chinese companies pull out of US stock markets - Yahoo! Finance

That's another matter altogether and not linked to the topic of this thread. A lot of Chinese companies with American stock listings have had questionable track record, insider dealings, and other issues. I'm sure some actual good companies also got hammered but generally American individual investors and probably even institutional investors have shied away from many Chinese stocks because it just calls for trouble... if at all, American auditing of Chinese books may help uncover some of the problems, so now those companies are wanting to leave U.S. exchanges.

[govtstatistic]

The United States won’t prosecute Corzine for raiding segregated customer accounts, but will happily convene a Grand Jury in preparation for prosecuting Julian Assange for exposing the truth about war crimes.

Jon Corzine Will Not Only Not Face Prosectuion, But May Be Launching A Hedge Fund Imminently | ZeroHedge

Assange or Corzine?

[phillyaggie]

yeah, it is quite disappointing to not see more action against all the financial mess from 2008/9. The progressives are certainly fuming. Watching a program like Moyers & Company, you can't help but feel anger and helplessness at the Dems.