Retiring White House Prosecutor Says the SEC Is Corrupt

[jakeXT]

Bloomberg News reported, on April 8th, that a Securities and Exchange Commission prosecuting attorney, James Kidney, said at his recent retirement party on March 27th, that his prosecutions of Goldman Sachs and other mega-banks had been squelched by top people at the agency, because they “were more focused on getting high-paying jobs after their government service than on bringing difficult cases.” He suggested that SEC officials knew that Wall Street would likely hire them after the SEC at much bigger pay than their government remuneration was, so long as the SEC wouldn’t prosecute those megabank executives on any criminal charges for helping to cause the mortgage-backed securities scams and resulting 2008 economic crash.

His ”remarks drew applause from the crowd of about 70 people,” according to the Bloomberg report. This would indicate that other SEC prosecutors feel similarly squelched by their bosses.

Kidney’s speech said that his superiors did not “believe in afflicting the comfortable and powerful.”

Referring to the agency’s public-relations tactic of defending its prosecution-record by use of what he considered to be misleading statistics, Kidney said, “It’s a cancer” at the SEC.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/04/09/65578/

[Baitball Blogger]

1. kick for importance.

[mindwalker_i]

2. This illustrates why the "revolving door" is detrimental to society

Too many people, most notably from the FCC, don't do their fucking job because they want a cushy - as in lucrative - job after they're done with government. Because of this, the government job just becomes training for being a crook.

Similarly, letting Congress and their families participate in insider trading is just legalized activity that should be criminal, and in fact, is criminal for the rest of us. If Martha Stewart wee in congress, she would have been fine.

All this allows the wealthy to become more wealthy by doing things the rest of us can't do. We don't have the connections or the legal cover. It has a very significant impact on speeding up income inequality; in institutionalizes that those with money and power are valued more than people who do work. It also fosters mistrust in government by the people.

[1StrongBlackMan]

10. When will Congress draft and/or pass ...

a law barring employment, for 10 years, in any industry that one sat as a regulator?

I have not seen anyone draft that legislation.

[JDPriestly]

12. Probably not as long as Obama or a Bush or a Clinton are our choices for president.

Obama is the best of that lot and here is how Counterpunch reports his private conversations with Wall Streeters after they awarded huge bonuses in early 2009:

"The CEOs went into their traditional stance. “It’s almost impossible to set caps [to their bonuses]; it’s never worked, and you lose your best people,” said one. “We’re competing for talent on an international market,” said another. Obama cut them off.

“Be careful how you make those statements, gentlemen. The public isn’t buying that,” he said. “My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”

. . . .
But then Obama’s flat tone turned to one of support, even sympathy. “You guys have an acute public relations problem that’s turning into a political problem,” he said. “And I want to help. But you need to show that you get that this is a crisis and that everyone has to make some sacrifices.” According to one of the participants, he then said, “I’m not out there to go after you. I’m protecting you. But if I’m going to shield you from public and congressional anger, you have to give me something to work with on these issues of compensation.”

. . . .

After a moment, the tension in the room seemed to lift: the bankers realized he was talking about voluntary limits on compensation until the storm of public anger passed. It would be for show.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/04/09/65578/

It has been "fix for show" during Obama's entire term. He has a long life ahead of him after he leaves the White House. And once

Carter left the White House and worked to improve the world. Reagan left it to finish his life in the solitary sentence of Alzheimers. Bush I left it to be a self-important gad-about. Clinton left it to be a self-important humanitarian and social butterfly who gives speeches for large sums of money to the very people he was supposed to be regulating during his presidency. Bush II left it to pretend to become an artist. What will Obama do?

It's what Obama does after his presidency that will tell us who he really is.

Carter passed the test as far as I am concerned. He is a man with a clean character, clean enough to have deserved to lead the free world. None of his successors meet his high standard. We shall see with Obama.

Maybe he thought that punishing the Wall Street leadership would threaten the economic stability of the world. Maybe he really thought that. But maybe he is just as corrupt as those leaders themselves. Time will tell.

[1StrongBlackMan]

15. That really is unresponsive to my question ...

What stops ... say ... Senator Warren or Senator Sanders (both harsh critics of wall-street), from drafting and stumping for legislation that would bar regulators from accepting employment (or "consulting&quot in any industry that they had regulated?

[JDPriestly]

24. How would I know? I think they should. Maybe it would be good to ask them.

We need that kind of legislation. But if Obama can sign executive orders controlling other aspects of employment in our government regulatory agencies and even in those of contractors, he might be able to sign one resolving this problem.

Of course, there is the issue of whether such a law or order would violate the privileges and immunities clause of the Constitution. I think, however, that the grounds for such a law or order would be so compelling that it would not.

http://blog.pacificlegal.org/2012/fourth-circuit-reaffirms-that-the-right-to-earn-a-living-is-protected-by-the-constitution/

I don't know if that is still the applicable law. I'm not up on that.

If our government spent its time investigating people in regulatory agencies and Congress for bribery if and when they, while still employed by the government, accept or discuss future employment in the private sector with a company that they are supposed be regulating or to have regulated, we might be able to clean up a lot of the corruption.

That would just require the normal investigatory procedures that should apply to any question about bribery and corruption.

[1StrongBlackMan]

29. The answer is ...

Nothing is stopping congress from addressing this problem. My question was to point out, you are blaming the wrong person.

[JDPriestly]

30. Has Obama asked Congress to address the problem. I doubt it.

[1StrongBlackMan]

31. Oh, okay. eom

[Hestia]

22. I've read where Jimmy Carter disturbed TPTB because he is a True Believer and how do you

go up against that? By derisively going after his beliefs and what he was fighting for. Jimmy Carter didn't help himself by being a Debbie Downer half the time and he was attacked for his Presidential Speeches. But his heart is in the right place, he just didn't know how to convey that, along with being absolutely clueless as to how D.C. is actually run. He was a Babe in the Woods.

Because of the derision from the other side, it helped sweep in their symbol - Reagan - of what a "true president should look like" (unfortunately the mass majority of people see the glamour but never look behind it) but Reagan was a Babe in the Woods too and he was preyed upon by TPTB because of his Alzheimer's. We all knew "something was wrong" with Reagan because, in spite of it all, he couldn't hide it any longer. I know I remember seeing him speak on TV (and at that time I rarely watched - working 2 jobs will do that) and it just stunned me how anybody in this world could find him to be any sort of Leader at all. He was trained as an actor and he was forgetting his lines and he hemmed, hawed, aw sucked his way through 8 years.

I seriously think he did not have one clue as to what his administration was doing whatsoever. Remember how he used to go to bed at around 8 or 9 p.m. I think it was because he was sun downing and Nancy was paid well to be there to soothe him - why else would he call her Mommy? I think he really did have her confused with his Mommy. *This* is the Leader of the Free World?

It was the end of a era when a grown adult with strong moral character could become our leader. The true adults in our recent past did fight the good fight on both sides of the aisle. It was a time when we could sit down at a table and come to an accord as to the best direction we should be heading. Those days are gone, never to come back in our lifetimes.

Reading this article confirms it.

We, as a society, need to step back and look at the Big Picture. One thing that really shocks me is how everyone is still playing their game. Why? We are just as bad as those we point fingers at for voting against their own self-interest. Are we not doing the same thing by buying the dross that is thrown at us every now and again? Why are we accepting the way things are and just going along? It is as if we are living in a Collective Fugue State and it is extremely hard to Wake up from that.

[JDPriestly]

25. True.

[Katashi_itto]

17. Will never happen. Hows that for responsive?

[mopinko]

3. lapdogs if there ever were.

DH works with them, know this for fact.

[theaocp]

4. Remember this

when you think of TFA. Their recruits are "in it for the long haul". Suuuuuuurrrree.

[mother earth]

5. Corruption is tainting every system and every court, and not a word from those elected to safeguard

this nation. This nation is being gutted and exploited.

[Enthusiast]

28. It's corruption from sea to shining sea.

Enough to make you sick.

[IkeRepublican]

6. A water-is-wet assessement at best

The SEC has been corrupt, it gets dark at night and women feel good.

Did I miss anything. Oh yeah, racoons like garbage.

Pretty sure that covers it.

[mother earth]

7. It's a cancer is right, and spreading. nt

[PumpkinAle]

8. “were more focused on getting high-paying jobs after their government service"

And the SEC is not alone in this.

I thought of this when I saw the environmental agency in NC appeal on behalf of Duke energy.

Sadly we have a lot of filth in this country.

[toby jo]

9. I'll bet they're worried about Warren.

Some folks just put out that 'I'm not for sale' vibe.

[NBachers]

13. They may have been worried about Elliott Spitzer, too. Good thing he's no longer a factor.

Somehow, I don't think Elizabeth Warren will have the same problem.

[JDPriestly]

14. Yes. That's why we have to work to get her to run in the primaries.

Warren can challenge the American people to see through the corruption and demand cleaner government.

Obama promised cleaner government and has delivered on some aspects of it. He knows that the corruption is our biggest threat, that it leads to all the other threats -- the terrorism, the spying, the kick-backs, the bribes, the disrespect for the American people and the law. But, so far, Obama has not done nearly enough to begin to rid D.C. of the overpaid lobbyists and the buying of votes, the hoodwinking of Americans, the collusion with the press, the propagandizing, the lies . . . .

[progressoid]

11. I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell ya.

[dotymed]

16. Any honest, sane American

knows that America is in its death throes.
Money, power and the corruption it breeds have been legalized for the wealthy while the 90% (non-elite) ultimately pay the price.
We pay this through non living wage jobs (if you are "lucky" enough to be employed), substandard health care, little or no "rights" and all of the misery that these conditions visit on us.
Something is being introduced to Americans to keep us docile and manageable. For those who are immune, for profit prisons are the answer.
All of this is orchestrated from the top down.
"Our" SCOTUS is even more corrupt than the "elected" governing branches of "our" (c'mon, none of this is representative of the American people) legislative and executive branches of government.
I guess the real question is will we save America from the money changers or just die with a whimper?

[Jack Rabbit]

18. !!

[center]

[/center]

[Major Nikon]

19. He should have figured this out after the SEC refused to prosecute Shrub for insider trading

[Tippy]

20. This is no suprise...

[Sister to TxTowelie]

21. No morals, just greed.

I guess Selfishness is a class in the College of Business Administration nowadays.

[90-percent]

23. Blanket Corruption

Every single institution our formally civil society depended on has been completely corrupted.

EVERY GOD DAMNED ONE OF THEM!

A resonant Chris Hedges quote for our times:

“We now live in a nation where doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the press destroys information, religion destroys morals, and our banks destroy the economy.”

Could my beloved DU colleagues please be generous and name one major institution of our society that hasn't yet been purchased outright by wealthy oligarchs?

Below, a recent Chris Hedges lecture I was fortunate to attend. A lot of truly remarkable points here, two that struck me are the megalomaniac personalities of guys like James Clapper and Keith Alexander. Clapper's testimony was described as absurd theater. Clapper knew he was lying an Congress knew they were being lied to! Alexander hired a Hollywood firm to make the "command center" of the gazillion dollar NSA headquarters in Salt Lake City or some such, just like Star Trek! Can you imagine! These psychopaths are all going Dr. Strangelove!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017185872


Chris message that these corrupt institutions are not going to chose to reform themselves. That reform can only come from we the people and it doesn't look like it will be easy. Nothing is going to be easy now that our planet's future has been sacrificed for the profit needs of big oil. Thee people running oil corporations are especially reptilian aren't they? A murderous Mexican Drug Lord is more honorable than these lizards. Maybe not, but I'm sure they'd both be comfortable swapping jobs for a day.

-90% Jimmy

[Enthusiast]

27. PLUS ONE! Thank you, Jimmy!

[Enthusiast]

26. Advocates for reining in Wall Street fraud would be very popular with the people.

This could be a winning issue for Democrats.

But I don't think we will go there.

Unfortunately.