On March 7, 2024, Attorney General Merrick Garland, speaking at the American Bar Association's 39th Annual White Collar Institute, gave an impassioned soliloquy on the importance of criminally prosecuting individual corporate executives for serious corporate crimes:
Absolutely disgusting. Once again the rich and powerful escape punishment. Merrick Garland is worse than useless as AG. His timidity in prosecuting Trump and now this. If Harris wins I hope she appoints an AG that actually has some balls and will do their job.
Yes, a constant refrain from the far right is defunding the “alphabet” agencies. They sabotage agencies & complain they are ineffective. It goes much further than DOJ & IRS.
While Garland has not been as effective against wayward billionaires as we’d like, he inherited naysayers in the dept who had stalled or sank prosecutions. Ones like the ‘whistleblowers’ the GOP used. Some out of fear of retribution or another Mueller report moment. Others were holdovers from DJT. (And the Senate held up Garland’s confirmation until March of 2021.) All of them have trouble with recruitment & retention.
Enforcement agencies have become a pawn of politics.
Damn right, John and Kim! WTF has this shit been going on for so long. I sincerely hope Harris gets rid of Garland. At first I thought he was a good choice for this job but now realize he is not. That criminal republicans have walked all over him is enough reason to get rid of him and get a strong, determined prosecutor to assume that job.
My understanding is that the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) has at one point said that nearly every member of the Fortune 500 have engaged in drug money laundering, including ALL of the major banks.
Drug money laundering is just one of the many financial services provided by Wall Street. Garland's latest effort is most likely just performative. Otherwise he'd trigger a massive backlash against the Biden Admin & Dems in general.
I was worried about corporate backlash to many of Biden’s most progressive achievements. His anti-monopoly, pro-union, pro-worker, pro-fair taxation policies….as I cheered, I wondered whether those corporations would buy the presidency for Trump. I wish I could cite the source but during the Trump campaign an executive said real estate moguls don’t normally run because so many are involved in money laundering.
Regarding banks, like TDF, getting into drug-money laundering, they simply cannot *not* do so to some degree lest their competitors outperform them. It is a lucrative profit stream--too lucrative to ignore. I suspect Garland's move on TDF is simply a "Hey guys, tone it down a notch, ok?!" braking maneuver.
Her promise to be a President for all Americans…including Republicans…sounds like a wink to the E-suite crowd. I am all in for Kamala, but I’m not expecting her to be a wrecking ball for white collar crime like Liz Warren would have been.
SO wish that Warren could have won the nomination. But of course, no chance. As far as I can tell, being a woman is (still) a HUGE obstacle to being President of our country.
This is our best chance! I was dubious at first, but VP Harris has won me over. The misogynists are many, and their arguments are weak, particularly considering the alternative…
(I just read your self-description. 181 mountains?! WOW! Also, I remember New College! Did you happen to know Barbara Tyroler from Chapel Hill, NC who went there? Haven't the extremely conservative "republicans" taken over New College? I seem to remember reading something about that a while ago.)
Very discouraging case, since it is at the heart of the soft corruption that infects government, business, the economy, and the character of the country. We need people who can root out the rot.
We will never ever learn when it comes to putting rich white men in jail for white collar crimes. The banksters damn near killed the global economy in 2008 and none of them went to jail, instead they got billions in bailout money. Donald Trump has been laundering money for mobsters of all stripes for decades and we know where that stands. TDBank launders drug money and the bank pleads guilty, pays a slap on the wrist fine, and none of the perpetrators go to jail. This will never end until we get an AG with balls enough to prosecute all criminals, not just those who can't afford some big shot lawyer.
"Crime in the Suites" gets a tax deductible pass while crime in the streets gets time in the slammer. The latter is as appropriate as the former is inappropriate. A gold parachute for the big white collar boss picking the company and customer pocket while the corner pickpocket does time rather than the reward of pocket-lining slime.
I'm still pissed about the '08 Banking crisis. Jailing those idiots would have been like shooting fish in a barrel. Once you grab a well paid executive, like any other criminal, they'll rollover and "sing". I understand that if a Corporation can afford Billions$$ in fines, they can afford $$Billions in Lawyers, and the DOJ rather just take the fine, but...
They ruined the lives of millions of persons like myself in all manner of small business ventures. I was running a solo operation working for myself selling my voice-over services. There were many like me and the banking crisis killed us all because it killed those who empoyed us.
So many recording houses bought truly expensive mixing boards and outboard gear, owing money to the bank and when business fell over a cliff, the banks foreclose. They must have had a warehouse full of audio gear, improperly stored, useless within a few weeks or months due to contamination by moisture/dust and for what?
The persons responsible vastly increased their portfolio sizes. I heard the following Xmas that the Ferrari dealers in the NY area ran out of Ferraris. Lots of bonuses from that bank bailout money!
This scenario played out all over the world causing damage that we are still recovering from. It took me 10 years to develop new, marketable skills, secure a position and work my up the ladder starting at minimum wage (for the 1st time in my life) at 49 years old.
Whoever did so much damage to the millions of persons whose lives were damaged and negatively impacted through no fault of their own, by factors completely outside their control, deserves to be punished severely. They have earned it and should get their due!
Yeah, not terribly surprising. If the financial crisis of the late 2000s was any indication, it's that executives of big banks will not be held meaningfully accountable for their company's failures (e.g. Wells Fargo).
Thank you for a very important analysis of a very imortant matter. We knew this was going on 11 years ago! Is it because of Loretta Lynch's expertise that we did not know more back then? As usual, Elizabeth Warren knows what is going on financially before anyone else. Maybe she should be the next Attorney General? Of course the corpoorate class of superior greed artists says she's unacceptably "progressive"--well, hurray!
"Garland did not announce the criminal indictment of any of TD Bank's executives." He really belongs in the "Chickenshit" club, and I await with eagerness all that ProPublica has uncovered.
"In a statement, TD Bank CEO Bharat Masrani said that TD Bank has "taken full responsibility for the failures of our U.S. AML program." They even have a department of anti-money laundering. So they had an extra 3 billion$ to stay out of jail!
Harris and Walz MUST win (and I "feel" that they will. Otherwise, Big Money will have the free rein that SCOTUS has given to Trump). Not too many years ago, Wells Fargo bank stole money from its customers to pay for fraudulent loans and mortgages. Did anyone go to prison for that?
People have already forgotten about what Wells Fargo did. I even think AARP might be partnering with them. I don't forget. Didn't forget Macy's opening a credit card in my name without my permission. Never shop there ever. People should do the same with WF and TD Bank. Change banks.
Remind me again, under just whose administration was the banking crisis handled by letting the criminal banks, and those in charge, not only no prison term, but entirely off the hook, plus a financial bail-out, with little else but eviction for the little guy.
I remember. What happened to those who suffered evictions and loss through fannie mae freddie mac was not handled well and really upset me. Too big to fail played a reasonable part in the solutions. As greedy and corrupt as they can be, we DO have system of banking.
I still say Garland is a Republican plant. McConnell suckered Obama into trying to appoint “someone like Merrick Garland” to SCOTUS then wouldn’t hold a vote. I think Joe felt sorry for Garland and made him attorney general. What a joke. We need attorneys general like Ramsay Clark, not Casper Milquetoast.
As long as the money in drugs is as bountiful as the drops of rain during a hurricane, there will be people who want a piece of the pie. Does anyone think TD is the only institution doing this right now? Drugs are a trillion dollar black market, moving money is big business.
Eisinger argues that "[o]ne of the major problems with American corporate malfeasance and white-collar prosecutions is that the Department of Justice has become a training ground for future white-collar defense attorneys." - I think this is one of the top issues. Why would they want to jail the very people they are hoping will hire them later in their careers?
When its time for corporations to hand out bonuses they somehow manage to "disentangle who did what within a large corporate structure" and make sure the higher up's are rewarded. As the Biden economy has made the US the envy of the world, the stock market hits record highs, and the fat cats get richer and richer, it is still not enough. They throw in their lot with an unfit, unwell fascist knowing there will be zero accountability for their actions in a Trump presidency. It will be a long hard slog to turn this around. We must elect Harris Walz and ensure a democratic controlled congress, then continue the hard work of demanding representation, and justice for we, the people!
Absolutely disgusting. Once again the rich and powerful escape punishment. Merrick Garland is worse than useless as AG. His timidity in prosecuting Trump and now this. If Harris wins I hope she appoints an AG that actually has some balls and will do their job.
And fully fund the DOJ as well as the IRS.
If the Dems sweep Congress, it's certainly possible. But the Senates's a longshot.
Yes, a constant refrain from the far right is defunding the “alphabet” agencies. They sabotage agencies & complain they are ineffective. It goes much further than DOJ & IRS.
While Garland has not been as effective against wayward billionaires as we’d like, he inherited naysayers in the dept who had stalled or sank prosecutions. Ones like the ‘whistleblowers’ the GOP used. Some out of fear of retribution or another Mueller report moment. Others were holdovers from DJT. (And the Senate held up Garland’s confirmation until March of 2021.) All of them have trouble with recruitment & retention.
Enforcement agencies have become a pawn of politics.
Damn right, John and Kim! WTF has this shit been going on for so long. I sincerely hope Harris gets rid of Garland. At first I thought he was a good choice for this job but now realize he is not. That criminal republicans have walked all over him is enough reason to get rid of him and get a strong, determined prosecutor to assume that job.
My understanding is that the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) has at one point said that nearly every member of the Fortune 500 have engaged in drug money laundering, including ALL of the major banks.
Drug money laundering is just one of the many financial services provided by Wall Street. Garland's latest effort is most likely just performative. Otherwise he'd trigger a massive backlash against the Biden Admin & Dems in general.
I was worried about corporate backlash to many of Biden’s most progressive achievements. His anti-monopoly, pro-union, pro-worker, pro-fair taxation policies….as I cheered, I wondered whether those corporations would buy the presidency for Trump. I wish I could cite the source but during the Trump campaign an executive said real estate moguls don’t normally run because so many are involved in money laundering.
Regarding banks, like TDF, getting into drug-money laundering, they simply cannot *not* do so to some degree lest their competitors outperform them. It is a lucrative profit stream--too lucrative to ignore. I suspect Garland's move on TDF is simply a "Hey guys, tone it down a notch, ok?!" braking maneuver.
Behind every fortune there is a felony.
WOW!!!
well said, and I agree 100%.
Agreed, but I am not hopeful.
Why not? She spent the bulk of her professional life as a prosecutor. I expect it's in her blood.
Her promise to be a President for all Americans…including Republicans…sounds like a wink to the E-suite crowd. I am all in for Kamala, but I’m not expecting her to be a wrecking ball for white collar crime like Liz Warren would have been.
SO wish that Warren could have won the nomination. But of course, no chance. As far as I can tell, being a woman is (still) a HUGE obstacle to being President of our country.
This is our best chance! I was dubious at first, but VP Harris has won me over. The misogynists are many, and their arguments are weak, particularly considering the alternative…
(I just read your self-description. 181 mountains?! WOW! Also, I remember New College! Did you happen to know Barbara Tyroler from Chapel Hill, NC who went there? Haven't the extremely conservative "republicans" taken over New College? I seem to remember reading something about that a while ago.)
History as precedent. Recall the response to the 2006 financial crisis for instance. Too big to fail is alive and well.
Very discouraging case, since it is at the heart of the soft corruption that infects government, business, the economy, and the character of the country. We need people who can root out the rot.
We also need to adequately fund those people.
Seems that should be easy to do; given the amount of $lush at play.
Why don't the RICO rules apply here in regard to sharing of asset recovery?
That kind of Corruption isn't "soft", it's criminal.
Imagine if Harris were to appoint Elizabeth Warren Attorney General . . . I can dream, can't I?
Elizabeth Warren is one of the reasons I'm thrilled to live in Massachusetts.
Ditto!
Or Hillary Clinton
Or Michelle Obama
We will never ever learn when it comes to putting rich white men in jail for white collar crimes. The banksters damn near killed the global economy in 2008 and none of them went to jail, instead they got billions in bailout money. Donald Trump has been laundering money for mobsters of all stripes for decades and we know where that stands. TDBank launders drug money and the bank pleads guilty, pays a slap on the wrist fine, and none of the perpetrators go to jail. This will never end until we get an AG with balls enough to prosecute all criminals, not just those who can't afford some big shot lawyer.
"Crime in the Suites" gets a tax deductible pass while crime in the streets gets time in the slammer. The latter is as appropriate as the former is inappropriate. A gold parachute for the big white collar boss picking the company and customer pocket while the corner pickpocket does time rather than the reward of pocket-lining slime.
Guarenteed the two "low level" employees charged were folks with no authority to make policy decisions.
Agree. They were probably mid-level managers signing or overseeing documents on a purely transactional basis following corporate policy.
I'm still pissed about the '08 Banking crisis. Jailing those idiots would have been like shooting fish in a barrel. Once you grab a well paid executive, like any other criminal, they'll rollover and "sing". I understand that if a Corporation can afford Billions$$ in fines, they can afford $$Billions in Lawyers, and the DOJ rather just take the fine, but...
They ruined the lives of millions of persons like myself in all manner of small business ventures. I was running a solo operation working for myself selling my voice-over services. There were many like me and the banking crisis killed us all because it killed those who empoyed us.
So many recording houses bought truly expensive mixing boards and outboard gear, owing money to the bank and when business fell over a cliff, the banks foreclose. They must have had a warehouse full of audio gear, improperly stored, useless within a few weeks or months due to contamination by moisture/dust and for what?
The persons responsible vastly increased their portfolio sizes. I heard the following Xmas that the Ferrari dealers in the NY area ran out of Ferraris. Lots of bonuses from that bank bailout money!
This scenario played out all over the world causing damage that we are still recovering from. It took me 10 years to develop new, marketable skills, secure a position and work my up the ladder starting at minimum wage (for the 1st time in my life) at 49 years old.
Whoever did so much damage to the millions of persons whose lives were damaged and negatively impacted through no fault of their own, by factors completely outside their control, deserves to be punished severely. They have earned it and should get their due!
And yet it will never happen.
So sorry and impressed by you.
Yeah, not terribly surprising. If the financial crisis of the late 2000s was any indication, it's that executives of big banks will not be held meaningfully accountable for their company's failures (e.g. Wells Fargo).
Thank you for a very important analysis of a very imortant matter. We knew this was going on 11 years ago! Is it because of Loretta Lynch's expertise that we did not know more back then? As usual, Elizabeth Warren knows what is going on financially before anyone else. Maybe she should be the next Attorney General? Of course the corpoorate class of superior greed artists says she's unacceptably "progressive"--well, hurray!
"Garland did not announce the criminal indictment of any of TD Bank's executives." He really belongs in the "Chickenshit" club, and I await with eagerness all that ProPublica has uncovered.
"In a statement, TD Bank CEO Bharat Masrani said that TD Bank has "taken full responsibility for the failures of our U.S. AML program." They even have a department of anti-money laundering. So they had an extra 3 billion$ to stay out of jail!
Harris and Walz MUST win (and I "feel" that they will. Otherwise, Big Money will have the free rein that SCOTUS has given to Trump). Not too many years ago, Wells Fargo bank stole money from its customers to pay for fraudulent loans and mortgages. Did anyone go to prison for that?
People have already forgotten about what Wells Fargo did. I even think AARP might be partnering with them. I don't forget. Didn't forget Macy's opening a credit card in my name without my permission. Never shop there ever. People should do the same with WF and TD Bank. Change banks.
Remind me again, under just whose administration was the banking crisis handled by letting the criminal banks, and those in charge, not only no prison term, but entirely off the hook, plus a financial bail-out, with little else but eviction for the little guy.
I remember. What happened to those who suffered evictions and loss through fannie mae freddie mac was not handled well and really upset me. Too big to fail played a reasonable part in the solutions. As greedy and corrupt as they can be, we DO have system of banking.
"Unaccepttably progessive" means "not letting us get away with highway robbery."
Under resourced DoJ
Falling down bridges
Starvation wages for educators
No books for schools or libraries
Record homelessness
But yeah … balance the federal budget & cut taxes.
Neoliberalism is Social Darwinism + Math
I readily agree that Biden’s economic policies are much better. But that doesnt undo the damage wrought by 44 years (1980-2024) of neoliberalism
Don't forget the IRS!
I still say Garland is a Republican plant. McConnell suckered Obama into trying to appoint “someone like Merrick Garland” to SCOTUS then wouldn’t hold a vote. I think Joe felt sorry for Garland and made him attorney general. What a joke. We need attorneys general like Ramsay Clark, not Casper Milquetoast.
Thank you for remembering that sucker play. Obama should have appointed Katanji Brown Jackson then. He got played like Carter did in Afghanistan.
It takes black women to say, "To hell with appearances. I am here to enforce the law."
Garland is no good. He is a traitor. Supporting trump and his corrupted goons. Why Joe never sacked him remains quite a dark mistery!
Tragic! There is no accountability for the well placed.
As long as the money in drugs is as bountiful as the drops of rain during a hurricane, there will be people who want a piece of the pie. Does anyone think TD is the only institution doing this right now? Drugs are a trillion dollar black market, moving money is big business.
Eisinger argues that "[o]ne of the major problems with American corporate malfeasance and white-collar prosecutions is that the Department of Justice has become a training ground for future white-collar defense attorneys." - I think this is one of the top issues. Why would they want to jail the very people they are hoping will hire them later in their careers?
Small error: 670 billion in title, million in text, which is presumably correct amount.
I was going to say that as well, although, millions to billions, is not a small error.
When its time for corporations to hand out bonuses they somehow manage to "disentangle who did what within a large corporate structure" and make sure the higher up's are rewarded. As the Biden economy has made the US the envy of the world, the stock market hits record highs, and the fat cats get richer and richer, it is still not enough. They throw in their lot with an unfit, unwell fascist knowing there will be zero accountability for their actions in a Trump presidency. It will be a long hard slog to turn this around. We must elect Harris Walz and ensure a democratic controlled congress, then continue the hard work of demanding representation, and justice for we, the people!