In January, President Obama announced during the State of the Union speech the creation of a new financial crimes task force to investigate the crimes and misdeeds that led to the economic collapse and "hold accountable those who broke the law."
The task force was considered a win. For months activists had been demanding a full investigation into wrongdoing by the big banks that led to the mortgage crisis. Perhaps most importantly, strong investigations could lead to additional settlements for the millions of underwater homeowners that need immediate help.
It could still be a "win," but only if the investigations are vigorous, swift and given every available resource they need to succeed. Right now that's not happening.
At present, despite the enormity and complexity of the issue; the direct impact on millions of Americans; the real possibility to achieve additional aid to homeowners; and the widespread nature of crimes and wrongdoing, the new Financial Crimes Unit has only been allocated a paltry 55 staff members to undertake this enormous task.
Even worse, we're hearing from insiders in Washington, D.C., that the full complement of 55 promised investigators -- which is already not nearly enough -- haven't even been deployed to the task force.
That's why this week my organization, CREDO Action, is reaching out to our networks online to insist that President Obama prove his commitment to the Financial Crimes Task Force, and provide the task force with the resources it needs to investigate Wall Street criminals.
Election year promises aren't nearly enough. We need to tell the president loud and clear: 55 investigators are not enough. We need 20 times more staffing to get this job done.
Twenty times more staffing may sound like a lot. But after the much smaller savings and loan scandal of the '80s, approximately 1,000 FBI agents and dozens of federal prosecutors were assigned to prosecute related cases. And 100 FBI agents were tasked with investigating the Enron scandal, which involved just one company and caused none of the economy-wide damage we've seen since the collapse of the housing bubble.
Clearly, 55 investigators is woefully inadequate. And to find out that President Obama hasn't delivered on those investigators, let alone resourced the effort at the levels appropriate to the biggest financial fraud in U.S. history, is shocking.
President Obama's record on Wall Street accountability is abysmal. But because of enormous grassroots pressure from activists like you and polling that suggests he needs to take on Wall Street as a part of his election campaign, we have a real opportunity to move President Obama to meaningful action on Wall Street accountability. Time, however, is running out.
President Obama's first task force at the Department of Justice did little if anything to prosecute Wall Street for crimes that led to the financial crisis. But because of your activism, he announced a new task force and named progressive champion and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman one of its five co-chairs.
Now we need to pressure the White House to give that task force the resources it needs to pursue justice. Without sufficient staff to conduct thorough investigations, it's hard to see how this task force could bring indictments quickly -- or even before Statutes of limitations run out.
Aside from the appointment of Attorney General Schneiderman, none of the other co-chairs of the new task force has done anything that achieves our goal of holding banks accountable or prosecuting bankers for criminal activity.
In fact, three of his co-chairs served on the earlier failed Department of Justice task force that the new investigation was created to supersede.
In an election year when we know the Obama reelection campaign wants to frame his race as opposing the candidate of the one percent, President Obama will be particularly sensitive to public perception of whether his efforts to hold Wall Street accountable are meaningful and represent the full force of his office.
President Obama needs to give the Department of Justice task force the resources required to launch a serious investigation that will bring about real accountability before the statutes of limitations run out for Wall Street's crimes.
It's been months already. We can't waste any more time. We must act now before we lose our opportunity to do anything significant at all.
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Oh sure there has been mis-selling. But there have also been millions of greedy homeowners who saw a way to make money by buying and flipping their house on an ever growing market.
I personally believe that with 20 or 1000 investigators, you will find mostly petty things, or at least no more than in time outside of the financial crisis.
To summarize: investigating: yes, and with force. But thinking that investigation will find the "bin Laden" of the financial crisis? No. I think it is a collective reponsibility by society in its entirety,
It has been nearly four years since the appointment of Larry Sumners and Tim Geithner by Obama and the Wall Street sell-out just goes on and on. And time is about to expire for the Obama administration.
It's truly sad as Obama would go down in history alongside JFK if he'd simply followed through on his rhetoric. Instead, he chose to continue corrupt policies of his predecessors and join Warren Harding, George Bush and Bill Clinton among the financially corrupt administrations.
And it is truly shocking to realize the swing vote that will elect Ron Paul to President to the White House will come from Progressive. However, Ron Paul is the ONLY honest candidate -- and Progressives want no part in the reelection of Warren G Harding.
President Obama continues to insult the intelligence of the American public by trying to give us the impression he is serious about holding people on Wall Street accountable for their actions.
Not long ago President Obama had a 60 Minutes interview with Steve Kroft and he told Steve Kroft that one the reasons for the lack of prosecutions of people on Wall Street is that a lot of what they did was not illegal and that is the reason why we had to change the law. In answering Mr. Kroft's question, President Obama came across as someone who did really believe what he was saying.
It is truly sad when the President of the United States is so clearly unwilling to uphold the rule of law.
He needs to install new leadership at the Department of Justice let the new leadership know he expects the law to be upheld. Of course, the President himself must first change his attitude. I am not sure he has it in him, even with political pressure, to make the change.
It became very easy to speculate in the housing market to drive up prices to a point where people could not afford. The houses now being worth more than they should have been.
Then the bubble burst. While Wall Street isn't completely absolved of all responsibility for this fiasco because they did give loans they knew were probably not going to be repaid the greed lies in the populace.
I won't hold my breath.
http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2012/february/financial-crimes_022712
And this
http://ww.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/fiancial-crimes-report-2010-2011
If this is not getting serious about the financial crimes, I don't know what is.
"Rep. Kaptur stood on the steps and told homeowners facing foreclosure to stay in their homes. She was right: the banksters have no legal claim on the homes they are foreclosing. Foreclosure is theft. Any bank that used MERS has no legal claim on property -- there are 65 million such mortgages to which no bank has a legal claim to foreclose." -- L. Randall Wray, THE HUFFINGTON POST, 3/16/12
"There should be an immediate and complete halt to all foreclosures in the US, and all foreclosures that have been completed over the past decade should be nullified." -- L. Randall Wray, THE HUFFINGTON POST, 3/16/12
"No one should buy any bank-owned real estate because it is probable that eventually the US will return to the rule of law. The property will be returned to the rightful owners -- those who were illegally kicked out of their houses." -- L. Randall Wray, THE HUFFINGTON POST, 3/16/12
The quotes listed above hint at Professor Wray's vision of what getting serious about financial crimes might look like.
Staffing the Bank Fraud Task Force with 1,000+ FBI agents, instead of 10 FBI agents, and asking Holder and Breuer to recuse themselves from any actions involving clients of their former law firm might also be considered useful metrics for the public to gauge whether this administration is getting serious about fixing this problem.
Then too he has the problem that Pres. Carter encountered when he took office. He found that the government was comprised of more Wall St. financial people than lawyers. They can undercut his best efforts; however it appears that he and Sec.Holder have no intention of forcing them to do the people's business.
It would be nice if the law was enforced but it ain't going to happen. The problem is we will get to visit this type of Wall St. led crash again in the near future.