Courtesy of Pam Martens.
If you want a hearty laugh, check out the web page for the SEC’s official whistleblower office. They’d like us all to know that “Assistance and information from a whistleblower who knows of possible securities law violations can be among the most powerful weapons in the law enforcement arsenal of the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
Really? Let’s take a walk down memory lane at what happened to past whistleblowers attempting to promote justice at the SEC.
First up is Gary Aguirre, a lawyer and investigator at the SEC who thought the powerful former Morgan Stanley honcho John Mack should receive a subpoena to give testimony about his potential involvement in insider trading. Mack was protected; Aguirre was fired via a phone call while on vacation — just three days after contacting the Office of Special Counsel to discuss the filing of a complaint about the SEC’s protection of Mack.
This is how Aguirre, who was eventually vindicated by Congress, explained it to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary on December 5, 2006:
“My testimony today will focus on a favor. Senior SEC officials gave it. Morgan Stanley and its CEO, John Mack (Mack), accepted it.
“The favor was an invisible shield. It was put in place by senior officials within the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. It shielded Mack from an SEC subpoena seeking his testimony and records in the PCM insider trading investigation. That evidence was a critical step in proving whether Mack had tipped PCM’s CEO, Arthur Samberg (Samberg), of General Electric’s (GE) pending acquisition of Heller Financial (Heller). Mack was the only suspect. Blocking the investigation of the only suspect blocked the SEC’s investigation of PCM’s trading in GE-Heller. Without that investigation, the SEC would never be able to even consider the filing of insider trading charges arising out of PCM’s trading in GE and Heller against Mack, Samberg, PCM or anyone else.
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