Justice Department Or Protection Racket?

There is something missing from the United States Department of Justice. It’s called justice. In the three and a half years that Eric Holder has served as Attorney General, there has been absolutely nothing but grandstanding when it comes to settling accounts with the white collar criminals who precipitated the 2008 financial crisis and put millions out of work.

Compared with 2003, the peak year for Wall Street prosecutions under George Bush, prosecutions under Obama are down 39%, in spite of a more target rich environment.

The peak of Obama’s stagecraft had to be in 2009, when he threatened to unleash his goon squads against Wall Street bankers.

"My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks," he told them. To drive the point home, Obama’s Acorn allies rented buses and visited the bankers’ homes, just to let them know that, “we know where you live.”

It’s the Chicago way.

But where are all the prosecutions? I don’t pretend to understand the Byzantine and labyrinthine financial regulations, but I do know that forging signatures and creating fraudulent financial documents are illegal. I also know that falsifying income statements is illegal. It’s also illegal to package mortgages created through fraud and sell them to investors all the while lying to those investors about the level of risk involved.

But that’s what Wall Street did. And we know that knowledge of these activities spread to the highest levels of bank and mortgage lender management. It seems pretty straightforward to me. But the comprehensive roster of prosecutions brought by the Obama Justice Department against the Wall Street white collar criminals who precipitated the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression has zero names on it.

That’s right! The Barack Obama/Eric Holder Department of Justice has not brought charges against a single Wall Street scofflaw.

In the meantime, Barack Obama and the Democratic Party have continued to rake in the lion’s share of Wall Street’s political contributions. Even Bain Capital, Mitt Romney’s old company, gives most of its money to Democrats and Barack Obama.

Put those facts together and it’s not hard to imagine that Eric Holder is operating the Justice Department as a protection racket where campaign contributions can purchase get out of jail cards. 

I can even cite a couple of obvious examples.

Jon Corzine is the disgraced former US Senator and governor of New Jersey. Joe Biden praised Corzine as the man that the Obama administration calls first for economic advice.

After running New Jersey to the brink of bankruptcy, the state’s voters gave him his walking papers. With a record like his, he was naturally hired as CEO of the investment firm MF Global, which he immediately bankrupted.

Worse than that, he “lost” $1.6 billion of client cash and now claims not to know where it went. Late last year, it was learned that Corzine was under criminal investigation.

So he did what anybody would do who wants to stay out of jail in this environment. He became one of the top fundraisers for Barack Obama’s re-election campaign.

And Jon Corzine is not unique.

Hollywood producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO of DreamWorks, is currently under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Katzenberg is suspected of bribing Chinese officials as part of negotiations to make a movie in China.

Jeffrey Katzenberg also co-hosted a big Hollywood fundraiser with George Clooney last week that raked in $15 million dollars for Obama. Katzenberg is also the largest individual donor to Barack Obama’s superPAC, having given $2 million.

Perhaps the Chinese should be investigating Katzenberg for bribing US officials.

And does anybody still remember the auction that former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich conducted for the US Senate seat that Obama resigned to become president? Blago’s in the jug, but what about the guys who came to him looking to buy the seat?

One thing we know for certain, only Democrats were permitted to bid. The only person we know publicly who did bring an offer to the table was Representative Jesse Jackson Jr.

It’s been three years now and the Justice Department has tapes of phone calls between Blagojevich and the bidders. It can’t be that hard to bring them to justice.

And as long as we’re talking about people with a history of corruption, we can’t leave out Eric Holder. One of his last acts of office in 2001 was to sell a pardon to swindler Marc Rich.