The White House Scandal No One Noticed
Why did Wall Street get off easier than the AP and IRS?
For those of us who have long wondered why the Justice Department never investigated Wall Street, the Associated Press subpoena scandal illustrates a key point: The Justice Department sets priorities based on what it hears from the White House. When the White House wanted to identify and prosecute leakers of classified information, Justice sprang into action and used extremely aggressive tactics. "I make no apologies" President Obama said today, for being concerned about leaks. READ MORE >>
Regulatory Rockstar
Elizabeth Warren is using her Senate seat to grill those who let the big banks off the hook
In September 2009, as chief of staff to Senator Ted Kaufman, I sat in on a meeting with the then-senator and Lanny Breuer, who led the criminal division of the Justice Department at the time. Why, Senator Kaufman wanted to know, had the Justice Department not prosecuted financial institutions and the individuals who run them for criminal behavior? Breuer said he was “dependent on the pipeline” to bring forward cases, and added that bank regulators so far had provided no criminal referrals related to the financial crisis. READ MORE >>
President Obama wants to consign the financial crisis to the past and delegate the implementation of financial reform to others in his administration. But he needs to get personally involved. Why? Because Senator Carl Levin’s recent hearing on the JP Morgan Whale showed that nothing has changed at the largest banks or the bank regulatory agencies since the run up to the financial crisis. READ MORE >>
