Report: Cronyism, Political Donations Behind Holder's Failure To Charge Bankers...

paulitician

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A new report from the Government Accountability Institute (GAI) finds that President Barack Obama’s and Attorney General Eric Holder’s failure to criminally charge any top Wall Street bankers is likely a result of cronyism inside the Department of Justice and political donations made to Obama’s campaign.

Despite Obama’s and Holder’s “heated rhetoric” against Wall Street (in 2009, Obama blamed the 2008 financial collapse on “reckless speculation of bankers” while Holder charged that “unscrupulous executives, Ponzi scheme operators and common criminals alike have targeted the pocketbooks and retirement accounts of middle class Americans”), they haven’t “filed a single criminal charge against any top executive of an elite financial institution,” GAI wrote in its report...

GAI argues that the Obama administration’s decision to not go after Big Finance is due to senior DOJ leadership — Holder, Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli, Associate Attorney General Tony West, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, Deputy Attorney General James Cole and Deputy Associate Attorney General Karol Mason — who “all came to the DOJ from prestigious white-collar defense firms where they represented the very financial institutions the DOJ is supposed to investigate.”

The report details how Holder and Breuer both came to the DOJ from Covington & Burling, a “top-tier Washington law firm” with a client list that includes financial firms like Wells Fargo, J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, CitiBank, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, ING, Morgan Stanley, UBS and Wilmington Trust.

GAI said that President Obama’s decision to choose Holder, “a white-collar defense attorney from Covington,” as his attorney general, over a “more fiery prosecutor,” appears to have sent “a subtle signal to the financial community” that this administration isn’t going to actually do anything, despite the harsh words.

Cole, the report outlines, was with Bryan Cave LLP — “a white-shoe firm with A-list clients” — before becoming Holder’s right-hand man at the DOJ. One of Cole’s clients while at Bryan Cave LLP, the GAI report shows, was insurance and financial giant AIG.

Cole had done $20 million worth of work for AIG between 2004 and 2008, but his close ties with the company — which was “at the heart of the financial crisis largely because of its noncompliance in regulatory and compliance issues” — didn’t stop Obama or Holder from welcoming him aboard their administration...

Read more: Report: Cronyism behind Holder's failure to charge bankers | The Daily Caller
 
Yea, he's the same numbnuts who was in the back pocket of Wall Street on PBS Frontline who didn't bring any prosecutions for the financial meltdown - what a putz...
:eusa_eh:
'Fast and Furious' Figure Accused of Misleading Congress Is Departing Justice Dept.
January 30, 2013 - The Justice Department announced Wednesday that Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer, head of the criminal division, "will leave the department on March 1, 2013." The decision may not have been his choice.
According to Politico on Tuesday, "a deal may be near in the Operation-Fast-and-Furious-related dispute that led the House of Representatives to cite Attorney General Eric Holder for contempt last year." The House has filed a lawsuit to enforce its subpoena against Holder. It is demanding that he turn over records showing how the Justice Department responded to congressional inquiries about the gun-running scandal. But Politico reported that both the House and the Justice Department have asked that a scheduled hearing in the case be delayed as the two sides try to work out a deal. Breuer's departure may be part of that deal.

In a news release announcing Breuer's departure, the Justice Department touted his accomplishments, including a mention that "the Criminal Division has made great strides in the fight against violent crime along the southwest border and across the country." There was no mention of "Fast and Furious," the ATF's guns-to-Mexico scheme that prompted Sen. Chuck Grassley, ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, to call for Breuer to be fired. Grassley says Breuer misled the committee. "When the Justice Department sent its letter to me denying ATF ever walked guns, Breuer knew otherwise," Grassley said in a floor speech last September, after the Justice Department inspector-general released a report on the gun-running operation in which the ATF, a division of the Justice Department, allowed illegal straw purchases of guns to take place for the purpose of tracing them to Mexican drug cartels.

One of the guns turned up at the scene where U.S. Border Agent Brian Terry was murdered. Grassley, in his Sept. floor speech, said Breuer "knew in 2010 about gunwalking in another case" called "Operation Wide Receiver," which preceded "Fast and Furious." "Yet he waited nine months before emails about Wide Receiver were about to be produced to Congress before he publicly apologized for not doing more about gunwalking" in that case, Grassley said. The senator said Breuer "should have come forward in February 2011 and told Congress that he knew ATF had walked guns. His failure to do so, coupled with his attempt to mislead Congress, are why I have called for him to resign or be fired." The Justice Department's announcement that Breuer is leaving came on Wednesday morning, at the same time the Senate Judiciary Committee was holding a hearing titled, "What Should America Do About Gun Violence."

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