Courtesy of Pam Martens.
New York City Police Department Out In Force for the Occupy Wall Street Protests on May Day 2012
Keeping with the decades long practice of dumping news that might be unsettling to the public during the late days of summer, when more of the populace is on vacation or generally not paying attention, we’ve learned recently that Goldman Sachs will not be prosecuted by the U.S. Justice Department for its CDO deals and, most likely, neither will Jon Corzine for misplacing $1.6 billion dollars of MF Global’s money. Add those to the lack of prosecutions of top dogs at AIG, Citigroup, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and a practice and pattern emerges.
These firms, after all, were simply engaging in the time-honored pastime of honing their skills as Masters of the Universe. That pastime is very much respected by the law firm of Covington and Burling, which has such an active revolving door to the U.S. Justice Department that it lists more than three dozen partners or staff who previously worked there or at its U.S. Attorney division. And currently working there, of course, are the top three men making decisions on prosecutions, all walking through the revolving door from Covington and Burling to the Justice Department.
Covington and Burling is the former law firm of the sitting U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder and the Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer who heads the Justice Department’s criminal division. On July 16, the new deputy chief of staff and counselor to Lanny Breuer became Dan Suleiman, also from Covington and Burling.
Prosecuting great corporate men trying to achieve nothing more than the great Ayn Randian dream of greed and selfishness is so yesterday. But in what is looking more and more like the Praetorian Guard that protected the Emperors of Rome, we are also detecting a practice and pattern of vicious prosecutions against those that might pluck a nickel from the Wall Street robber barons.
Yesterday, the syndicated columnist Susan Antilla penned an eye-opening piece for CNN. The article contrasted the “justice” received by Goldman Sachs to that received by Sergey Aleynikov, the former Goldman Sachs employee who was charged within 48 hours of Goldman asserting he had taken computer source code for its high frequency trading operation. High frequency trading is effectively one more weapon in Wall Street’s arsenal for looting the public.
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