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Guardian: Eric Holder didn't send a single banker to jail for the mortgage crisis. Is that justice?
US attorney general’s tenure has proven unhelpful to the five million victims of mortgage abuses in the US
David Dayen The Guardian 25 September 2014
Holder has a mixed legacy: excellent on civil and voting rights, bad on press freedom and transparency. Photograph: JONATHAN ERNST/Reuters
“Friends and former colleagues say Holder has made no decisions about his next professional perch,” NPR writes, “but they say it would be no surprise if he returned to the law firm Covington & Burling, where he spent years representing corporate clients.”
A large chunk of Covington & Burling’s corporate clients are mega-banks like JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Bank of America. Lanny Breuer, who ran the criminal division for Holder’s Justice Department, already returned to work there.
In March, Covington highlighted in marketing materials their award from the trade publication American Lawyer as “Litigation Department of the Year,” touting the law firm’s work in getting clients accused of financial fraud off with slap-on-the-wrist fines.
Covington, American Lawyer says, helps clients “get the best deal they can.”
Holder has a mixed legacy: excellent on civil and voting rights, bad on press freedom and transparency...
MORE: http://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2014/sep/25/eric-holder-resign-mortgage-abuses-americans
hackedforsure 25 September 2014 9:46pm
Recommend 10
Although Holder's Clinton-era DOJ policy memo regarding "unintended consequences" may have saved the financial system from more institutions like Lehman Bros. from collapse, it indeed had far-reaching consequences for millions of people, and not just in America. That the financial industry got away with little more than some fines (thanks Lannie Breuer) is a travesty of justice. Even Reagan put over 1000 bankers in prison as a result of the S&L crisis.
Does that put the current administration to the right of the catalyst for the neo-liberal (Reagan) shift in U.S. politics? It's certainly worth consideration.
