Elizabeth Warren Flays Wells Fargo CEO: 'You Should Resign'

[DonViejo]

Source: Talking Points Memo

In a fiery Capitol Hill hearing Tuesday morning, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) offered an incredible rebuke of John Stumpf, the CEO of Wells Fargo, where bank employees under pressure to meet demanding sales targets opened more than two million fake bank accounts over the last several years.

"You should resign. You should give back the money that you took while this scam was going on, and you should be criminally investigated, by the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission." Warren said.

Stumpf and Wells Fargo executives have denied there was any coordinated effort to open fake bank accounts in an attempt to boost the company's stock price. Instead, Stumpf maintained Tuesday that individual bankers made decisions independently to open the fake accounts. Wells Fargo has fired more than 5,000 employees in connection with the fake accounts. But Warren wasn't letting Stumpf off the hook nor did a cadre of other senators – both Republicans and Democrats – who grilled the CEO.

"This just is not right. A cashier is held accountable, but Wall Street executives who never hold themselves accountable, not now and not in 2008 when they crashed the worldwide economy," Warren said. "The only way that Wall Street will change is if executives face jail time when they preside over massive fraud. We need tough new laws to hold corporate executives personally accountable."

-snip-

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/elizabeth-warren-to-wells-fargo-ceo-you-should-resign

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

1. K & Fuckin' R

[bluedigger]

36. I'm not down with prison rape for anyone.

[niyad]

2. seppuku comes to mind, but that requires something he clearly does not have.

[Oldem]

3. He'll probably get a raise.

[rdking647]

4. WFC shoudl be put out of business

thats the only way the big banks will learn. find them guilty of criminal acts and bar them from trading. the result will be WFC goes bankrupt.
do that to one big bank and the others will get the message.

[still_one]

15. No. The CEO and all senior managment responsible for this fraud should be fired, without severance,

and appropriately charged under the law.

The millions of customers who were victims need to be compensated, and the whole company needs to be cleaned up and reorganized.

Putting Wells out of business will hurt a lot of the employees who had nothing to do with this. It was the CEO and upper managements actions, and those are the ones who need to be held accountable for their actions. Not some bank teller making slightly more than minimum wage.

[Andy823]

19. Exactly

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[leftieNanner]

23. "Without Severance"

BINGO! That's the key. The woman VP who ordered this scheme got over $125 million in her severance.

Time for jail for these crooks.

[Friend or Foe]

5. If "corporations are people too"

Then, they should be tried in criminal court as a "person" and subjected to the same incarceration as "persons". So, 10 years + jail time for Wells Fargo. No business, No dividends, No nothing!

[LittleGirl]

16. Welcome to DU

and right on!

[Hekate]

6. KnR

[hamsterjill]

7. As usual, Senator Warren cuts to the chase.

She's absolutely right, of course.

[barbtries]

8. after giving the apparent master mind of this fraud

millions of dollars in a golden parachute, how does anyone at Wells Fargo even begin to be believable when they say they're sorry, or they didn't know? they loved it! and if they hadn't gotten caught they'd still be doing it. there can be no doubt of that.

[William Seger]

9. I'm really glad she wasn't chosen to be VP

She is BADLY NEEDED in the Senate!

[still_one]

10. She sure did, and she was right on point. The CEO just threw everything back to "the board",

dismissing the fact that he sits on that board

The fact that Senator Warren has endorsed Hillary should be reason enough for any self-identified progressive to vote for Hilary

[MynameisBlarney]

12. Yes.

And then he should be arrested for fraud and put on trial along with the rest of the crooked ass SOBs that caarried out his orders.

If corporations are people, then they need to be put in prison when the they break the law.

Shut that entire corporation the fuck down.

[AlbertCat]

13. This just is not right. A cashier is held accountable, but Wall Street executives who never hold the

Yes.

Cashiers do what those above them tell them to do (so they won't lose their job)

And those above do what those above them tell them what to do.

And those at the top are responsible for their company's actions and should know what is going on.

Unless there was a concerted effort to hide it from the top dogs, the top dogs need to be held responsible and pay the price.

[mrmpa]

31. Sounds a lot like Nazi Germany after the war............

"I was just following orders"

However those in command did face their acts at Nuremberg.

[onehandle]

14. Iceland his ass...

Iceland Has Jailed 29 Bankers. Why Can’t the UK and US Do the Same?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stefan-simanowitz/iceland-has-jailed-29-bankers_b_8908536.html

[forest444]

28. Because Iceland's weren't too big to jail.

Ours - and the opium-laundering British banksters - could trigger another worldwide great depression on the other hand.

They know it, and they know our public officials know it (although a lot of Congresscritters are motivated more by bribery than by fear of economic retaliation).

[metalbot]

38. This, sort of

Iceland has a population of 300k. Bank executives of local banks who commit malfeasance in the US are prosecuted and jailed, because their organizations are small enough that you can't argue "I had no idea what was going on".

In large corporations, it's much harder to place blame directly. Imagine now Wells Fargo, with a market cap of $240 billion dollars. The CEO has 6 direct reports, one of which is the EVP of sales. He tells her "Your job is worth $20M a year with bonuses, and I need you to hit aggressive 10% growth targets YOY. I expect a report next week." She then tells her 6 direct reports "Your job is worth $6M a year with bonuses, and I need you each to grow your segments by 10% YOY. Maybe try selling more services to our existing customers." Her direct reports then tell their direct reports "Hey, your jobs are worth $1M a year in bonuses. I really need you to figure out how to increase our cross sell numbers." Ad nauseum. In the absence of direct instructions that say "Hey, please tell your people to create fake accounts", it's not clear how you assign blame (and legal guilt) in a meaningful way.

[rurallib]

17. "too big to fail." Why does that phrase come to mind?

[C Moon]

18. "...individual bankers made decisions independently to open the fake accounts."

What a lying bastard: they knew damn well what would happen when the set up those sales targets—and they knew what was going on.
It's time these rich CEO's pay for THEIR crimes, just as the lower classes do.
It makes me sick that he is trying to blame it on the workers. Ugly creep!

[packman]

20. Oh, come on Liz - a CEO resign? Really-

Well, if he does resign with a HUGE pension, stock and probably a multi-million $ golden parachute - it will certainly be telling him , wouldn't it? The poor darling.

[berksdem]

21. and in the end...

even if he does resign or is fired he will have a 20M golden parachute... we are so f*7ked up as a country it is disgusting.

[NBachers]

22. Ooops -time for another "Gentleman's Fine." Then they can all "move forward."

[pansypoo53219]

25. i would be happy if we could confiscate his ill gotten gains.

a THIEF is a THIEF.

[Divine Discontent]

35. right on, the damn CONS!

strip them of the dirty money! sick of the sleazy rich who do this shit

[dae]

26. That is an awful lot of coincidences at lower levels,

it's like they had a workshop on what to do.

[Divine Discontent]

37. Thank YOU!!! right!? Sure is disgusting. They look like they had a freaking office meeting at each

location! If they can figure out the full deal, and they're behind doing what it looks like, they need fined billions and that and the retiring CEO need to have their funds earned from this timeframe heavily stripped and given to victims!

TIRED OF THE CONS SCREWING THE POOR AND WORKING CLASS!

[forest444]

27. Drumpf and Stumpf.

Fraud you can believe in.

[turbinetree]

29. Lets put this into context

she and the CEO are going to be sent off into retirement land with compensation(s) of over 125 MILLION dollars, if she and other had been fired they get "only" 40% of the compensation, nice huh, lets have the foxes guarding the chicken house.

And most of the hypocrites on this panel, grilling these individual(s) has gotten some form of "charity" to be elected into office.

Does anyone see a problem here or is this just some F***king opportunity to dupe the public that they are doing something and making the dumb citizens of this country pay and then the charade for the election cycle that they are doing something, besides sitting in a chair, making $174,000 , and $225,000, and then living the high life of BS.

Warren is right in her attack, and she nails it, but the others on this committee are just F**king hypocrites.

All you have to do is go to below and see the f**ing hypocrisy.

The MSM is not even going to mention this when this is aired tonight, if it gets any air time at all, on the so called news, how convenient, see a problem, it doesn't take much, you having officials getting some form of bribe moola to ask some rhetorical questions for the appearance factors they are going to do "something, what a joke:

https://www.opensecrets.org/

https://ballotpedia.org/Main_Page

[SleeplessinSoCal]

30. The spinners are out in force. The hired hacks are helping.

Los Angeles was Wells Fargo's biggest targeted market for these scams. And this man Verret went after the CPB in a discussion on our local NPR station KPCC.

About Verret: http://mercatus.org/j-w-verret

AIR TALK kpcc: http://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2016/09/20/52211/wells-fargos-corrupt-sales-division-too-big-to-man/

[phallon]

32. Jail is just right

First they refinanced my mortgage, then rolled $12000 of fees into the new mortgage in 2003.

Then

They took me to the cleaners with my graduate FSLA loan in 2006 and 2007. They opened an account without me knowing then, had to jump through hoops because loan money was in WF account in my name I had use, even if just the deposits after while.

And yet,I still can't write.

[jmowreader]

33. Question for all the "shut it down" people

Are you planning to reimburse their millions of customers for the work it will take to move their business to a different bank? I know it'd take me the better part of a day to move everything I've got set up to another firm, and my finances are not that complex. Some people would require weeks to do it.

Throw the people responsible for this shit in jail.

[metalbot]

39. I'll add a potential victim to that

Wells Fargo market cap is roughly $240 billion. 76% of that is institutional investors. That means pension funds, endowments, mutual funds, etc.

At some point, there are clearly people involved in malfeasance. They fired 3000+ people. Why are those people not being prosecuted? If we began to prosecute those people, and if there was clearly instructions from above to create fake accounts, then someone is going to squeal. It may not rise to indictments at the highest level, but it could get high enough to act as a very real deterrent.

[Divine Discontent]

34. these are the SLEAZEBALLS who come to our workplaces and flaunt their millions and get their way

because they're filthy rich - emphasis on filthy - and it's high time the govt have people like Warren tell them they need to be held accountable for these crimes!

I've worked at 2 places that directly, and indirectly dealt with super rich people. The direct one was painful for me. I hated dealing with them, as many would be so snotty and demanding even when you were being properly respectful. I wish our bosses at the giant employer told them to go F themselves, but the corporation made millions every month off the very rich making them happy.

So, this bank RUINED people's credit with these fake accounts that profited them! Many of their sick employees made up this crap to make extra ca$$$h and that CEO retiring with $125 million needs to have that DOWN-SIZED to a fraction of it, perhaps minimum wage to years worked, and the other 124.5 Million goes to the people they F****D! SICK of the little guys with little to no money being screwed by the donalds of the world!


GIVE 'EM HELL LIZ??? No, she gave them the TRUTH and they only THOUGHT it was HELL!

[llmart]

40. Man, I saw this tonight on PBS Newshour.....

and she was absolutely tremendous! She minces no words.

Bank of America and Wells Fargo need to be eviscerated. Criminals at the top.

[greyl]

41. Kick nt

[sellitman]

42. I hope someday

That I can vote for President Warren.

[whistler162]

43. Wrong Senator Warren!!!!

He and Carrie Tolstedt, who just retired, should have been fired and stripped of stock options.

[SHRED]

44. When charges are filed and prison time is given

Then I'll take this all seriously.

Fines and name calling do nothing.