Elizabeth Warren: Prosecute Corporate Crime Better Than Obama (to Clinton & Sanders)
Elizabeth Warren Challenges Clinton, Sanders to Prosecute Corporate Crime Better Than Obama
by David Dayen * Jan. 29 2016 * The Intercept
Three days before the Iowa caucuses, Sen. Elizabeth Warren has released what might have been her closing argument had she been a candidate in the presidential race. Its a thorough indictment of a rigged system in Washington that allows corporate criminals to go free while those without the same power and influence get severely punished.
The report a 12-page booklet titled Rigged Justice: How Weak Enforcement Lets Corporate Offenders Off Easy cites 20 well-documented civil and criminal cases from 2015 in which the federal government failed to require meaningful accountability.
Of the 20 cases, which span Wall Street, the auto industry, pharmaceuticals, natural resources, and more, only one resulted in any convictions to executives, and that was for a misdemeanor in the Upper Big Branch mine case, where 29 Americans died.
The focus on how laws are enforced rather than the intricacies of the law itself carries on a theme Warren has stressed throughout primary season that personnel is policy, that who you will put in power in those key regulatory positions matters as much as your 10-point plan.
The Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders camps and their allies in the press have been arguing increasingly harshly over who has the most perfect or most attainable policies. But the real issue, as Warren sees it, comes in installing the personnel to carry out the laws on the books that protect public safety and the economy.
https://theintercept.com/2016/01/29/elizabeth-warren-challenges-clinton-sanders-to-prosecute-corporate-crime-better-than-obama/