FedUpUSA

Archive for the ‘DOJ’ Category

Oh look, show trials complete with plea deals that are entered at the same time as are the charges!

Federal prosecutors unveiled criminal charges against three former Credit Suisse Group AG employees, providing a window into the way traders allegedly invented inflated values for mortgage bonds during the financial crisis.

Two of the three men pleaded guilty to criminal charges of conspiracy, admitting they attempted to conceal the scheme from managers in a bid to boost their bonuses.

Yes, and happy days are here again, the bad guys are all in prison and we can all go back to our work.

One employee was captured on a taped call worrying that “someone is going to spot” the inflated prices, prosecutors said. When another employee told his boss he should book a large loss, the boss allegedly balked: “That’s a lot of money, dude,” according to a taped conversation cited by prosecutors.

Wait a second… Taped call eh?  From 2007 and 2008?  Can someone please explain why it’s four years later when we’re seeing these charges?

Oh, I wonder if the delay has anything to do with this?

A U.S. Justice Department source has told The Daily Caller that at least two DOJ prosecutors accepted cash bribes from allegedly corrupt finance executives who were indicted under court seal within the past 13 months, but never arrested or prosecuted.

The sitting governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, his attorney general and an unspecified number of Virgin Islands legislators also accepted bribes, the source said, adding that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is aware prosecutors and elected officials were bribed and otherwise compromised, but has not held anyone accountable.

The bribed officials, an attorney with knowledge of the investigation told TheDC, remain on the taxpayers’ payroll at the Justice Department without any accountability. The DOJ source said Holder does not want to admit public officials accepted bribes while under his leadership.

Say it isn’t so!  I mean, c’mon — there hasn’t been anything going on with bribery when it comes to, oh, Jefferson County in Alabama, right?  We haven’t actually seen municipal officials go to prison while the banksters who booked outsized profits (and after all, for there to be a bribe someone must offer a bribe while someone else receives said bribe) walk around chuckling, right?

But this allegation is a new low — if true, then there are people walking around right now who had indictments filed under seal but the indicted handed over the proverbial “big envelope” and, well, people sorta “forgot” about it.

Read the whole story over at Daily Caller.  It’s disgusting, and one has to assume that if this occurred in that context it is probably not an isolated incident.

By Philip Klein

In order to protect the new national health care law from legal challenges, the Obama administration has been forced to argue that the individual mandate represents a tax – even though Obama himself argued the exact opposite while campaigning to pass the legislation.

Late last night, the Obama Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss the Florida-based lawsuit against the health care law, arguing that the court lacks jurisdiction and that the State of Florida and fellow plaintiffs haven’t presented a claim for which the court can grant relief. To bolster its case, the DOJ cited the Anti-Injunction Act, which restricts courts from interfering with the government’s ability to collect taxes.

The Act, according to a DOJ memo supporting the motion to dismiss, says that “no suit for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of any tax shall be maintained in any court by any person, whether or not such person is the person against whom such tax was assessed.” The memo goes on to say that it makes no difference whether the disputed payment it is called a “tax” or “penalty,” because either way, it’s “assessed and collected in the same manner” by the Internal Revenue Service.

But this is a characterization that Democrats, and specifically Obama, angrily denounced during the health care debate. Most prominently, in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Obama argued that the mandate was “absolutely not a tax increase,” and he dug into his view even after being confronted with a dictionary definition:

OBAMA: George, the fact that you looked up Merriam’s Dictionary, the definition of tax increase, indicates to me that you’re stretching a little bit right now. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gone to the dictionary to check on the definition. I mean what…

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, no, but…

OBAMA: …what you’re saying is…

STEPHANOPOULOS: I wanted to check for myself. But your critics say it is a tax increase.

OBAMA: My critics say everything is a tax increase. My critics say that I’m taking over every sector of the economy. You know that. Look, we can have a legitimate debate about whether or not we’re going to have an individual mandate or not, but…

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you reject that it’s a tax increase?

OBAMA: I absolutely reject that notion.

At the time Obama made that statement, the Senate Finance Committee had just released its own health care bill, which clearly referred to the mandate penalty as an “excise tax.” But in later versions, the word “tax” was stripped, because it had become too much of a political liability for Democrats. The final version that Obama signed did not describe the mandate as a tax, and used the Commerce Clause — not federal taxing power — as the Constitutional justification for the mandate.

“”This is an about face from what is laid out in the law,” said Karen Harned of the National Federation of Independent Business, which joined the Florida lawsuit against ObamaCare. “In the text of the healthcare law, the findings for passing an individual mandate specifically rely on the effects of individuals on the national economy and interstate commerce. Nowhere in the findings is the mandate referred to as a tax. The Justice Department is now calling it a tax to try and convince the court not to rule on whether or not Congress exceeded their authority under the Commerce Clause by legislating that all citizens must purchase private health insurance or face a penalty.”

Put another way, the administration is now arguing in federal court that Obama signed a massive middle-class tax increase, in violation of his campaign pledge.

The American Spectator

NOW we’re talking!  Hello?!!  Why isn’t the name of every single Member of Congress on this letter?!!! 

Via Huffington Post:

The Honorable Eric Holder
United States Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20530-0001

Dear Attorney General Holder:

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced on Friday, April 16, 2010, that it had filed a securities fraud action against the Wall Street company Goldman Sachs & Co (GS& Co.) and one of its employees for making materially misleading statements and omissions in connection with a synthetic collateralized debt obligation (“CDO”) that GS & Co. structured and marketed to investors. The SEC alleges that:

1. This synthetic CDO, ABACUS 2007- AC1, was tied to the performance of sub-prime residential mortgage-backed securities (“RMBS”) and was structured and marketed by GS & Co. in early 2007 when the United States housing market and related securities were beginning to show signs of distress. Synthetic CDOs like ABACUS 2007-AC1 contributed to the recent financial crisis by magnifying losses associated with the downturn in the United States housing market.

GS & Co. marketing materials for ABACUS 2007-AC1 – including the term sheet, flip book and offering memorandum for the CDO – all represented that the reference portfolio of RMBS underlying the CDO was selected by ACA Management with experience analyzing credit risk in RMBS. Undisclosed in the marketing materials and unbeknownst to investors, a large hedge fund, Paulson & Co. Inc. (“Paulson”), with economic interests directly adverse to investors in the ABACUS 2007-AC1 CDO, played a significant role in the portfolio selection process. After participating in the selection of the reference portfolio, Paulson effectively shorted the RMBS portfolio it helped select by entering into credit default swaps (“CDS”) with GS & Co. to buy protection on specific layers of the ABACUS 2007-AC1 capital structure.

In sum, GS & Co. arranged a transaction at Paulson’s request in which Paulson heavily influenced the selection of the portfolio to suit its economic interests, but failed to disclose to investors, as part of the description of the portfolio selection process contained in the marketing materials used to promote the transaction, Paulson’s role in the portfolio selection process or its adverse economic interests.

As the SEC notes, financial manipulations such as this contributed to the near collapse of the U.S. financial system and cost American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. On the face of the SEC filing, criminal fraud on a historic scale seems to have occurred in this instance. As an ever growing mountain of evidence reveals, this case is neither unique nor isolated.

If both global and domestic confidence in the integrity of the U.S. financial system is to be regained, there must be confidence that criminal acts will be vigorously pursued and perpetrators punished.

While the SEC lacks the authority to act beyond civil actions, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has the power to file criminal actions against those who commit financial fraud. We ask assurance from you that the U.S. Department of Justice is closely looking at this case and similar cases to further investigate and prosecute the criminals involved in this, and other financially fraudulent acts. Furthermore, if the DOJ is not currently looking into this particular case, we respectfully ask you to ensure that the U.S. Department of Justice immediately open a case on this matter and investigate it with the full authority and power that your agency holds. The American people both demand and deserve justice in the matter of Wall Street banks whom the American taxpayers bailed out, only to see unemployment and housing foreclosures rise.

This matter is of deep importance to us. As you may know, H.R. 3995, the Financial Crisis of 2008 Criminal Investigation and Prosecution Act, has been introduced, which authorizes you to hire more prosecutors, Director Mueller of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to hire 1,000 more agent as well as additional forensic experts, and Chair Mary Shapiro of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to hire more investigators to continue to pursue justice and route out the criminals in our financial system. Part of financial regulatory reform should include removing the criminals and crafting a system that supports those who follow the law.

We in Congress stand ready to support you in protecting the American taxpayers from financial crimes such as the fraud that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Goldman Sachs with committing. We ask that you take up this case, and others, to pursue justice for the American people, to put criminals in jail, and seek to restore the integrity of our nation’s financial system.

Sincerely,

Marcy Kaptur
MEMBER OF CONGRESS

 Also, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee has started a petition: No “Too Big To Jail” – those who wish may endorse it here.

Yup – epic blunder on the part of the GOP if they are going to be on the other side of this issue.  Goldman Sachs DID commit fraud and it was fraud of epic proportions – and it was against the American people.  While we’re at it, the rest of the big banks have done the exact same thing.  Every single one of the ‘too big to fail banks’s’ CEOs and Board Members need to be brought up on criminal charges.  They need to be dismantled and thrown in the dust bin of history.

STOP THE LOOTING AND START PROSECUTING!

I was down in Washington on a business trip. That ended at four and I
headed for a bar. I found a spot between Pennsylvania and Kentucky
Avenues. Nice place. Two barkeeps, me and another guy who looked like
he had been drinking gin for the past few hours. Quiet, just the way I
like it.

Sure enough, at five the place fills up. It’s a young crowd. Good
looking. Well dressed. This looked like an Ivy League group. I was
thinking that they could be DOJ, possibly IRS (they looked too happy,
but who knows). They could have been Treasury folks; the headquarters
is not far off. Anyway, they had two drinks gossiped for and hour and
left. I stayed.

At one point I happened to look under the now empty stool next to me.
Some folded up papers. Being the nosey S.O.B. that I am, I picked them
up and took a look. Bingo!

I am just guessing, but these initials could stand for Geithner,
Volker, Summers, Goolsbee and Romer. Of course they could stand for
anything. I will leave it to you to draw any conclusions that might be
appropriate after a look at this. Judging from the notes that were
taken, this must have been an interesting meeting. I am using the
Scribd format so you can enlarge this. Enjoy!

Found Memo

If you haven’t as yet, take a look at the ‘labels for this post’. Life is a comedy. We’re all a part of it. Happy Holiday.
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