Courtesy of Pam Martens
Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase
Five-count felon JPMorgan Chase is shocked – shocked! – that corporate financing of “the people’s House” has led to corruption and instability in Washington. The Board of Directors of JPMorgan Chase obviously did not see money as a corrupting influence because it has boosted the pay of its Chairman and CEO, Jamie Dimon, to $31.5 million annually despite the fact that Dimon sat at the helm of this bank through its unprecedented five felony counts in a span of six years. The bank admitted to all five counts and got deferred prosecution agreements every single time from the U.S. Department of Justice. Not one of the myriad federal regulators of this bank demanded that Dimon step down as unfit to oversee a bank holding $2 trillion in depositors’ life savings as this six-year crime spree went unchecked.
Now JPMorgan Chase, along with fellow felon banks Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, have announced that they will be suspending political donations – not permanently mind you, but just for a little while. JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs announced six-month suspensions while Citigroup announced a three-month halt by its PAC. But as CNBC points out:
“Of the six biggest U.S. banks, only Morgan Stanley made it clear that it will not make donations to members of Congress who opposed the Electoral College certification of Biden. The firm will continue contributions to other lawmakers, according to a person with knowledge of the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity.”
Popular Information reported that it had obtained an internal memo from Citigroup that indicated Citigroup’s PAC would “not support candidates who do not respect the rule of law.”
We asked Tom Mueller, author of the brilliant Crisis of Conscience: Whistleblowing in an Age of Fraud for his perspective on this gesture from a serial plunderer on Wall Street. His response: “I’m tickled pink to learn that Citi now officially endorses the rule of law, after decades of stomping all over it. When will they start applying it to their banking?”
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