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> On March 6, 2013, Holder testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that the size of large financial institutions has made it difficult for the Justice Depar

> On March 6, 2013, Holder testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that the size of large financial institutions has made it difficult for the Justice Department to bring criminal charges when they are suspected of crimes, because such charges can threaten the existence of a bank and therefore their interconnectedness may endanger the national or global economy. "Some of these institutions have become too large," Holder told the Committee, "It has an inhibiting impact on our ability to bring resolutions that I think would be more appropriate. > Prosecution rates against crimes by large financial institutions are at 20-year lows. Holder has also endorsed the notion that prosecutors, when deciding to pursue white-collar crimes, should give special consideration to "collateral consequences" of bringing charges against large corporate institutions, as outlined in a 1999 memorandum by Holder. Nearly a decade later Holder, as head of the Department of Justice, put this into practice and has demonstrated the weight "collateral consequences" has by repeatedly sought and reached deferred prosecution and non-prosecution agreements and settlements with large financial institutions such as J.P. Morgan Chase, HSBC, Countrywide Mortgage, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and others where the institution pays a fine or penalty but faces no criminal charges and admits no wrongdoing. Whereas in the previous decade the Bush administration's Department of Justice often sought criminal charges against individuals of large institutions regardless of "collateral consequences" such as cases involving Enron, Adelphia Communications Corporation, Tyco International, and others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Holder#Criminal_investigations_and_prosecutions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Holder#Criminal_investiga...

doctorpangloss 7y ago
This is missing the perspective of just how much a disaster Obama inherited in 2008. Also I get that it's Wikipedia, but the comparison to Bush is ridiculous. The Enron story is a long one. Here's Gray Davis's perspective on exactly what it means that the Bush DoJ "sought criminal charges:" > "I inherited the energy deregulation scheme which put us all at the mercy of the big energy producers. We got no help from the Federal government. In fact, when I was fighting Enron and the other energy companies, these same companies were sitting down with Vice President Cheney to draft a national energy strategy." Furthermore the whole reason Holder is using the term "collateral consequences" instead of "collateral damage" is because that term was used by Dick Cheney and the press to describe why he does not care about civilian deaths in Afghanistan and later Iraq. It would be a stretch, but surely the lack of investigations into no-bid war contracts like Halliburton's had as much to do with their "collateral consequences" on military operations as it would on their paychecks. Obama inherited multiple quagmires due to disregard of the consequences of criminal justice policy. Normal people will never be on the wrong side of a banking fraud, except if their bank goes out of business. What is justice there? So while I believe bad people should go to jail, I sympathize with Holder's point of view.
- ahi 7y ago
  This is a terrible take. For 8 years, whenever Obama or Holder were asked to make things right at the expense of their future employers, they proclaimed just how powerless they were. The White House and the DOJ have the power to squash wall street like bugs, and make "normal people" whole. They CHOSE not to.

doctorpangloss 7y ago

This is missing the perspective of just how much a disaster Obama inherited in 2008. Also I get that it's Wikipedia, but the comparison to Bush is ridiculous. The Enron story is a long one. Here's Gray Davis's perspective on exactly what it means that the Bush DoJ "sought criminal charges:" > "I inherited the energy deregulation scheme which put us all at the mercy of the big energy producers. We got no help from the Federal government. In fact, when I was fighting Enron and the other energy companies, these same companies were sitting down with Vice President Cheney to draft a national energy strategy." Furthermore the whole reason Holder is using the term "collateral consequences" instead of "collateral damage" is because that term was used by Dick Cheney and the press to describe why he does not care about civilian deaths in Afghanistan and later Iraq. It would be a stretch, but surely the lack of investigations into no-bid war contracts like Halliburton's had as much to do with their "collateral consequences" on military operations as it would on their paychecks. Obama inherited multiple quagmires due to disregard of the consequences of criminal justice policy. Normal people will never be on the wrong side of a banking fraud, except if their bank goes out of business. What is justice there? So while I believe bad people should go to jail, I sympathize with Holder's point of view.

ahi 7y ago
This is a terrible take. For 8 years, whenever Obama or Holder were asked to make things right at the expense of their future employers, they proclaimed just how powerless they were. The White House and the DOJ have the power to squash wall street like bugs, and make "normal people" whole. They CHOSE not to.