President Obama Clears Wall Street Of Crimes

[Better Believe It]

President Clears Wall Street Of Crimes
By: masaccio
October 7, 2011

Barack Obama slept through his securities law class at Harvard. That’s the only explanation I can offer for his answer to Jake Tapper’s question at a press conference Thursday. Tapper asked him about the failure of his administration to prosecute a single Wall Street executive. From the transcript:

"Well, first on the issue of prosecutions on Wall Street, one of the biggest problems about the collapse of Lehmans and the subsequent financial crisis and the whole subprime lending fiasco is that a lot of that stuff wasn’t necessarily illegal, it was just immoral or inappropriate or reckless…."

By “a lot of stuff”, the President means everything that happened, from fraudulent sales of real estate mortgage-backed securities, to Repo 105, to filing false affidavits in foreclosure proceedings. He knows this even though there have been no criminal investigations, no FBI inquiries, no Grand Jury subpoenas, and apparently no review of independent investigations. For him, this isn’t about law. He just knows that the immoral and inappropriate and reckless behavior that caused the Great Crash and the Lesser Depression wasn’t a crime.

Obama’s blanket pardon isn’t newsworthy. No one in the national media picked it up. I checked the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the LA Times, and the Chicago Tribune (which published the AP report). None of them mentioned the Q&A. I checked Google News and couldn’t find any mention of it except in live blogs. Obama’s dismissive response reflects the view of the American Oligarchy, the financial elites who run the country, and the media they own and operate.

Read the full article at:

http://firedoglake.com/2011/10/07/president-clears-wall-street-of-crimes/

[banned from Kos]

1. more FDL bullshit misinformation - auto unRec

edit --

Congress came to the same conclusion as the President in the long awaited FCIC report ---

http://fcic-static.law.stanford.edu/cdn_media/fcic-reports/fcic_final_report_conclusions.pdf

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[girl gone mad]

23. Laws were clearly broken.

Start http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/10/why-occupywallstreet-doesnt-support-obama-his-nothing-to-see-here-stance-on-bank-looting.html">here:

1. Violation of REMIC (real estate mortgage conduit) rules, which are IRS provisions which allow mortgage backed securities to be treated as pass-through entities. As we’ve indicated, the violations were clear cut and are easily documented. Moreover, when the senior enforcement officer in the IRS was alerted last year, she was keenly interested. But the word that came back was the the question had gone to the White House, and the answer was to nix going after these violations: “We are not going to use tax as a tool of policy.” So this is not a case of creative use of “loopholes,” this is prima facie evidence of an Administration policy of protecting the banks.

2. Consumer fraud under HAMP. Catherine Masto of Nevada has already delineated this case in her second amended complaint against numerous Bank of America entities (in fact, the evidently clueless President could find a raft of other litigation ideas in her filing). All the servicers engaged in similar egregious conduct.

3. Securities fraud by mortgage trustees and serivcers. While the statute of limitations for securities fraud for the sale of toxic mortgage securities in the runup to the crisis has now passed, securitization trustees and servicers are making false certifications in periodic SEC filings. In layperson terms, the trustee certifies that everything is kosher with the trust assets. As readers well know, in many cases the custodians do not have the notes or they were not conveyed to the trust as stipulated in the pooling and servicing agreement (as in they were not properly endorsed through the chain of title).

4. Widespread risk management failures as Sarbanes-Oxley violations. As we’ve discussed, Sarbox provides a fairly low risk path to criminal prosecutions. And we believe the SEC has been incorrectly deterred by an adverse ruling in the early stages of its case against Angelo Mozilo. In that case, the judge (with no explanation of his ruling) barred the SEC from claiming SEC violations (which this case did) and double dipping by adding a Sarbox charge (securities fraud statutes parallel Sarbox language; indeed, that was one of the complaints re Sarbox, that many of its provisions were already represented in existing law). That’s far more significant than it appears. As we argued in an earlier post, the language in Section 302 (civil violations) tracks the language in Section 906 (criminal violations). A win on a Section 302 case would thus set up what would appear to be a slam dunk criminal case.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/10/why-occupywallstreet-doesnt-support-obama-his-nothing-to-see-here-stance-on-bank-looting.html">more...

[banned from Kos]

27. I read the NC piece you linked The bar is being lowered quite a bit

to find some crimes and prove President Obama wrong (which is the political objective).

REMIC? HAMP? Sarbanes-Oxley? There are no doubt violations that would result in fines - no doubt wrongful foreclosures that would result in damages awarded to the plaintiff. Sarbox is a real stretch as that was intended for false FR.

Read the FCIC report conclusions -- Congress lays it out clearly without alleging "crimes" once.

http://fcic-static.law.stanford.edu/cdn_media/fcic-reports/fcic_final_report_conclusions.pdf

Its over - you guys will never damage the President on this. Hell, even the GOP doesn't give a damn about this. They consider a bad solar loan more politically damaging.

[girl gone mad]

38. You and the President are wrong.

Laws were broken. Criminals should have gone to jail. Instead they were rewarded. The backlash has only just started.

The President is unlikely to win re-election. He flushed his chances away by repeatedly socializing Wall Street's losses while promoting unnecessary and devastating austerity policies for Main Street. Political instability and sovereign debt risk was always the guaranteed outcome of Obama's foolish and contemptible neoliberal economic agenda.

[sabrina 1]

42. Why do't you give it up? Too many people know that crimes were

committed, major crimes, to try this tactic. It won't work, there are far too many victims. And all of them, investors, home-owners, American citizens who lost their pensions, and their jobs, who care about justice and what has happened to this country as a result of those crimes, all of them want these crimes prosecuted.

Your attempt to twist the Senate Report into 'they did not allege crime' is simply wrong. They did allege crimes and referred their findings to the DOJ. Congress doesn't refer anything to the DOJ unless they have uncovered evidence of crime. It is NOT Congress' job to prosecute crime. It is their job to look at what they are asked to look at, and if they find evidence of crime to pass what they have found to those whose job it is to deal with crime.

The Senate Committee did just that. They referred their findings to the DOJ. And Sen. Levin in interviews, did indeed state there was 'most likely criminal activity'. So do us all a favor and stop pretending you were not told all of this already. Your efforts to try to cover these crimes doesn't make any sense on a democratic board where we have followed these crimes for several years now and will not be fooled by distractions and obfuscations and the American people will not be satisfied until arrests are made and trials begin.

[treestar]

46. In our system, there must be specific charges made

against specific people - and enough evidence to sustain an indictment.

This is why "prosecute Wall Street" sounds so stupid.

Prosecute John Smith for violation of Section X of the Securities Code because there is evidence might make some sense.

But just generally calling for "Wall Street" to be "prosecuted" makes us look like loons.

[cui bono]

29. So wait... are you actually on the side of the banksters?

Or are you just using a knee-jerk response to blindly defend Obama?

[banned from Kos]

37. So you're a knee jerk Perry/Romney fan?

I support President Obama.

You guys will still be pissing and moaning 10 years later about these perceived "crimes". Move on, its over.

[cui bono]

39. Wow. When did I support/defend them? Quote? LInk? n/t

[treestar]

47. Merely being a banker is not a crime

I would be on the side of innocent until proven guilty, prosecuting only where there is evidence. What could be wrong with that?

[mdmc]

33. yet nothing has changed imho

so we wait for another chance to bail them out.

[fascisthunter]

34. weak bullshit nobody believes

[sabrina 1]

41. Wow, you are fast with your now familiar dismissal of the crimes

that brought down this economy. Do I have to repost all the information I already provided you with, regarding the two year bi-partisan Senate Committee's findings and their referral of those findings to the DOJ again?

This article is completely correct and fortunately for at least some of the victims of those crimes, which are not in doubt at all, except apparently by this president, and I hope by now he is receiving lots of information he apparently didn't have, several major cases being heard across the country continue to uncover these crimes. Something this president must be aware of since his administration has attempted to strike a deal with all 50 US Attorneys to prevent them from continuing their investigations.

I don't know why he said what he said considering his attempt to strike a deal on behalf of those who crashed the world's economy. If there were no crimes, he would have no need to try to reach a plea deal on their behalf. The bigger question is 'why is he attempting to stop investigations into the biggest crime in the history of the Financial world'??

Can YOU, who are so interested in this, explain how forging documents eg, is not a crime? Or how selling what you know to be worthless pieces of paper which you are yourself betting against, but fail to tell that to the investors you are selling them to, is not a crime?

How about making deeds to properties disappear in order to speed up foreclosures? Is that not a crime?

How was it that the FBI in 2005 reported fraud in the Mortgage industry and requested additional manpower to try to deal with, as it was on such a large scale, they reported, they could not handle it with the people they had. Why did Bush refuse that request, and worse, take many of them OFF the case, claiming they were needed for 'terrorism'?

It is laughable to try to claim there was no crime, it is probably the biggest crime ever, as one economist called it, 'the biggest bank heist in history' and this president would be very foolish to even try to help cover it up. Because he can't. Too many victims will not allow that to happen.

[Xicano]

2. Boooo on Obama!!!

Can't say I'm surprised that someone who dismissed war crimes would also dismiss massive fraud and corruption from wall street.

[Angry Dragon]

4. just another thing he is the Judge of

[SidDithers]

5. ...

Sid

[Whisp]

6. hamster shit. unrec.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. Yep. K&R

[MrTriumph]

8. Thank you for posting this. The President's opinion was ridiculous.

If you've had any experience at all in real estate or lending, you know the President was wrong. There are many loan guidelines- many set in law- that were violated.

The amnesy program being discussed between the states and lenders is a clear indication of wrong doing.

But if you want to raise a billion dollars for reelection, you can't have potential contributors going to jail now can you?

[truedelphi]

14. + 1. n/t

[RKP5637]

20. Yep, follow the money trail!!! n/t

[treestar]

9. Moronic

Drivel from people who have never had to deal with the court system. Or reality.

[loyalsister]

10. Not everything outrageously immoral is illegal

Private insurance companies can legally deny care even if it is clear that death will be the likely result.

[coalition_unwilling]

35. How about taking triple-B rated mortgage backed bonds (so called 'subprime mortgages') and putting

them together into triple-A rated CDOs for sale to unsuspecting buyers foreign and domestic? Would that qualify as merely immoral or would that meet your threshold for illegal, i.e., FRAUD?

And how could Obama know and dismiss the activities in the absence of a Dept. of Justice investigation?

The fix is in and I won't be voting for Obama's capitalist crony administration in 2012.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Denzil_DC]

12. LOL! I knew who posted this from the title even before I clicked in

Unrec for the reasons already stated by others.

[truedelphi]

13. He has to clear them of their crimes - he is too complicit to do otherwise.

Just who offered up their approval of Hank Paulson on "Sixty Minutes," last Sunday in Nov 2008?


Who appointed Tim Geithner to office?

Who might have to fall back on his previous statement, first made in April of 2009, that "I was too busy when running for office to pay attention to anything other than the wars we were fighting. Those wars were my priority, and I just don't have much understanding of the economic situation."

But for any citizen with a big wallet and some time to spend, and who has familiarity with the articles of impeachment mentioned in the Constitution:
there are ways to prosecute and indict, impeach or hassle Geithner and Bernanke.

Tim Geithner has lied to Congress on several occasions. Any official who lies to Congress can be impeached. (See articles of impeachment, embedded in the Constitution.)

He has lied when Head of the New York Federal Reserve, where he manipulated the handling of the 2008 TARP monies, which somehow or other, always ended up benefiting AIG and Goldman Sachs, far more than any other firms. (That might be an indictable charge, in and of itself.) And he lied after being made the Secretary of the US Treasury.

Then there is this thing of Mr Bernanke, who has headed up the Federal Reserve since 2005. While holding this office, he "cranked up the printing press to buy mortgage securities, commercial paper and other assets from Wall Street.

"Those purchases by the way led to some nice profits for the Wall Street banks and dealers who sold them to Bernanke, and the GSE purchases seem to be illegal since the Federal Reserve Act only allows the purchase of securities backed by the government."

(The above quoted material was testimony of Senator Bunning back in December of 2009.)

So there are just two people who might have been indicted, and or impeached, had Obama remained true to the radical progressive values that he touted back in his campaign days, especially those days when he made himself available to the Good People of Wisconsin in October 2008.

Funny how once elected those principles of standing with the people and being for the people went right out the Oval Office window, while he became busy opening the door, via his appointments, to the Biggest and most Heinous of Corporations who are now plundering our wallets (and our gardens) for their profit.

The "Funny Business" of being so much for the Big Corporations that one of his best friends, an architect of NAFTA's creation, Rahm Emanuel himself, was appointed as the President's Chief of Staff. And he during the momentous first days in office, he remained unable to remind The President of whom it was who actually voted him into that office - and instead, Rahm seemed to feel it was okay to call us "retards."

We "retards" are now holding The President's feet to the coals. Along with the feet of Goldman Sachs executives, and AIG executives and all the other Too Big To Fail types.

[truedelphi]

15. K & R number four. n/t

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

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[SidDithers]

19. I'm sure that post will get deleted too...

and well it should.

"Black republican"? What fucking nonsense.

Sid

[blueknight]

24. tell me sid

does he govern like a dem? thats what i thought!

[AverageJoe90]

17. Ultimately had to unrec. At least he called them out.

I'd like to see a full-blown rant against Wall Street too, but right now, it'd probably backfire on him, even with all the people who'd support it(and rightfully so!).
At least give him credit for pointing out how damned reckless & immoral all of that shit was.

I used to be a big fan of Jane Hamsher but she just doesn't seem to get it half the time.

[Better Believe It]

22. "I used to be a big fan of Jane Hamsher" She didn't write the article. Did you read it?

[AverageJoe90]

28. She still posted it, though, that's part of my point. nt

[Bobbie Jo]

45. Didn't read it either.

I don't read any of the deliberate misinformation you use to spam this board.

[cui bono]

30. "give him credit for pointing out how damned reckless & immoral all of that shit was"

What?!?!?!

He's the fucking president! He should do a hell of a lot more than that ffs. Wow, talk about lowering the bar on presidential responsibilities.

[JoePhilly]

21. FDL = F**king Delirious Lunatics.

It is interesting (but not surprising) that FDL does not list the specific laws that they think were broken in this piece of "ahem ... journalism".

I love this part of their idiocy ... "Obama’s blanket pardon isn’t newsworthy. No one in the national media picked it up." Perhaps, moron, no one "picked it up" because Obama did not pardon any one.

Aparently, FDL is angry that no one "picked up" their weak ass spin. boo, hoo.

[SidDithers]

25. Blog opinions are news nowadays...

no matter how inaccurate they may be.

Sid

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[uponit7771]

31. ***********BULLSHIT FDL POST********************* Again, points to little evidence to back its claim

[coalition_unwilling]

32. How could Obama know that without an investigation by the DoJustice

and the enforcement arms of the SEC and CFTB first?

The fix is in and I won't be voting for Obama and his capitalist crony administration in 2012.

[SidDithers]

36. I can't wait for election season to begin..

The air will be much fresher at DU.

Sid

[Name removed]

40. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[SidDithers]

43. I'll miss you when you're gone...

You'll read this when you switch to "Printer-friendly format" to see what "Ignored" posted. :rofl:

Sid

[moondust]

48. Good question.

Fiduciary Law & Legal Definition

A fiduciary is someone who owes a duty of loyalty to safeguard the interests of another person or entity, such as a trustee of a testamentary trust, a guardian of the estate of a minor, a guardian, committee or conservator of the estate of an incompetent person, an executor of a will, an administrator of the estate of a decedent or an advisor or consultant exercising control over a testamentary or express trust.

A fiduciary may be an executor, administrator, guardian, conservator, curator, receiver, trustee in bankruptcy, assignee for the benefit of creditors, partner, agent, officer of a corporation, public or private, public officer or any other person acting in a fiduciary capacity for any person, trust or estate. Fiducairies may be required to hold funds and assets in a special fiduciary account and file periodic acounts and/or inventories with the court. A fiduciary has a duty not to benefit at the expense of the one they are responsible for. A fiduciary must avoid "self-dealing" or "conflicts of interests" in which the potential benefit to the fiduciary is in conflict with what is best for the person who trusts him or her.

http://definitions.uslegal.com/f/fiduciary/

I'd imagine the corporate lawyers have worked overtime trying to find the loopholes in this kind of thing.

[dmosh42]

44. BIG promises made to Obama on campaign cash being available!!

[Scuba]

49. And Bradley Manning guilty. Very disappointing in both cases.