Courtesy of Pam Martens.
Julie Williams, Chief Counsel, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Testifying Before the House of Representatives on July 7, 2011
Last evening, the U.S. Senate’s Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection, part of the Senate Banking Committee, announced the details of its much anticipated hearing slated for next Thursday, April 11, to peel away the multi layers of darkness surrounding the government’s hastily scrapped plan for in-depth, “independent” reviews of bank foreclosure files that were to make victims of foreclosure abuse whole.
The Senate Subcommittee, which includes Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, and Jeff Merkley – who have sufficiently removed their rose-colored glasses regarding continuing Wall Street corruption to function as useful investigators – will focus on the role of the outside consultants that were hired and paid directly by banks to conduct what were promised to be unbiased reviews.
The hearing is titled Outsourcing Accountability? Examining the Role of Independent Consultants and is slated for 10 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Witnesses thus far announced include: Daniel P. Stepano, Deputy Chief Counsel, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC); Richard M. Ashton, Deputy General Counsel, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Fed); Konrad Alt, Managing Director, Promontory Financial Group, LLC; James F. Flanagan, Leader, U.S. Financial Services Practice, Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLP. The Subcommittee has indicated that additional witnesses may be added.
If Warren, Brown and Merkley do their job properly, the hearing has the potential to showcase the fact that cronyism, conflicts of interest and the Washington/Wall Street nexus of corruption is alive and well, even after bringing the country to the brink of economic collapse just five short years ago. Accomplishing that feat is critical to getting real financial reform back on the legislative agenda.
One essential witness that needs to make an appearance is Julie Williams, the former Chief Counsel of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency who stepped down on September 30, 2012 and in less than four months became a managing director of a consulting firm created by her former boss at the OCC, Eugene Ludwig, who headed the agency from 1993 to 1998. The OCC is the top regulator of all national banks, including those of the too-big-to-fail variety and has a history of cronyism. For example, John Dugan, who headed the OCC from 2005 to 2010, covering the worst years of the financial crisis, was previously a registered bank lobbyist. He returned to the same law firm from which he came, Covington & Burling, where he chairs the firm’s Financial Institutions Group – advising the same institutions he previously regulated.
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