Courtesy of Pam Martens.
The Wall Street cartel that has for decades kidnapped the process of nominating anyone who has anything to do with money and high office in the United States (Federal Reserve Chair, New York Fed President, U.S. Treasury Secretary, Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or its General Counsel) has a powerful spin machine running full throttle to secure the confirmation of Mary Jo White to head the SEC.
Take the headlines and story threads that have been regurgitated throughout the business media since President Obama nominated White on January 24. The spin goes like this: she’s a former Federal prosecutor and she’s tough. Here’s how the widely circulated story by the Associated Press framed the nomination in its lead paragraph:
“President Barack Obama sent his strongest signal yet Thursday that he wants the government to get tougher with Wall Street, appointing a former prosecutor to head the Securities and Exchange Commission for the first time in the agency’s 79-year history.”
Even members of the business press who eventually got around to questioning White’s conflicts of interest as a corporate lawyer continued to suggest that White left government work after many years as a Federal prosecutor and only then became a corporate lawyer working for Wall Street’s largest firms.
A correct headline would have been: corporate lawyer with 36 year ties to one law firm representing Wall Street to head SEC. The real problem with Mary Jo White as a nominee to head the SEC is that her revolving door has been spinning in and out of the corporate law firm Debevoise and Plimpton for 36 years. She didn’t go through the revolving door once; she went through the revolving door at least three times.
When someone leaves a white collar criminal defense law firm three times to work for the agency prosecuting those federal criminal cases, red flags need to go up.
…
