It didn’t work out with Pierre Omidyar.
So, Matt Taibbi is back at Rolling Stone.
And his first article is a blockbuster.
In it, Taibbi puts the lie to the commonly expressed belief that the reason there has been no criminal prosecution of a major Wall Street bank or banker is because these cases are just too difficult to prove.
The article– The $9 Billion Witness: Meet JPMorgan Chase’s Worst Nightmare — introduces to the world one Alayne Fleischmann — former JP Morgan Chase executive turned whistleblower.
Carry this article wherever you go.
And when you come to the next white collar professional, be they defense lawyer or prosecutor, and they try and feed it to you, feed them back Taibbi and Fleischmann.
“Ask her where the crime was, and Fleischmann will point out exactly how her bosses at JPMorgan Chase committed criminal fraud,” Taibbi writes. “It’s right there in the documents; just hand her a highlighter and some Post-it notes – ‘we lawyers love flags’ – and you will not find a more enthusiastic tour guide through a gazillion-page prospectus than Alayne Fleischmann.”
“She believes the proof is easily there for all the elements of the crime as defined by federal law – the bank made material misrepresentations, it made material omissions, and it did so willfully and with specific intent, consciously ignoring warnings from inside the firm and out.”
“She’d like to see something done about it, emphasizing that there still is time. The statute of limitations for wire fraud, for instance, has not run out, and she strongly believes there’s a case there, against the bank’s executives. She has no financial interest in any of this, no motive other than wanting the truth out. But more than anything, she wants it to be over.”
Fleischman was laid off in 2008.
She says that the Justice Department used her testimony to secure a $9 billion fine from JP Morgan Chase.
But she believes that prosecutors strung her along.
And Taibbi thinks there might have been a tacit agreement between JPMorgan and the Department not to pursue criminal charges “in earnest.”
“My concern was that they were not investigating,” Fleischmann told Taibbi.
As if to prove her point, just a few days after Taibbi posted his blockbuster at Rolling Stone, international regulators hit the five biggest banks billions in fines for manipulating foreign exchange rates.
Once again, the Justice Department was sidelined.
“The breadth, brazenness, scope and duration of the global conspiracy to manipulate the foreign exchange markets are staggering,” said Dennis Kelleher, president of Better Markets. “Yet, the global too-big-to-fail banks are again allowed to evade responsibility and accountability by using shareholders’ money to pay big fines, which will generate headlines but do little if anything to stop the relentless Wall Street crime spree. In fact, these payoff public relations settlements are little more than cover-ups that reward past crime and will incentivize future crime.”
“Banks do not commit crimes,” Kelleher said. “Bankers, executives, supervisors and traders do. Yet, not one single executive is being punished individually and none of the banks even have to admit wrongdoing or disclose the details of their misconduct. Leaving the public in the dark is not just bad law enforcement policy — it undermines trust and confidence in prosecutors and regulators as well as the banks and financial system themselves.”
“While the banks did agree to take certain steps to better supervise their traders, that is laughably inadequate. While the terms of these settlements cannot now change, the US and global regulators must now publicly release all the documents related to the investigations and settlements. The American people deserve this minimal step to be able to evaluate the conduct not just of the banks, but also of the public officials who purport to act in their best interests.”