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Attorney General Says that the Nation’s Biggest Banks are Too-Big-To-Jail
Think Progress / News Report
Published: Thursday 7 March 2013
Financial prosecutions reached a 20-year low in 2011, as regulators and the Justice Dept. chose instead to settle claims with large banks over mortgage and foreclosure fraud and other scandals.
Both Democrats and Republicans have raised criticism of the Justice Department’s leniency when it comes to the prosecution of Wall Street banks for their roles in the housing crisis and financial collapse that sparked the Great Recession. But today, Attorney General Eric Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the very size of those banks is what inhibits prosecution, Bloomberg reports:
Criminal charges against a bank — something that could threaten its existence — may also endanger the national or global economies in the case of the largest ones, because of their size and interconnectedness. That has “made it difficult for us to prosecute” some of those institutions, Holder said today at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
“That is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large,” Holder told lawmakers. “It has an inhibiting impact on our ability to bring resolutions that I think would be more appropriate.”
The six largest Wall Street banks have grown exponentially in recent decades and now hold assets worth more than 60 percent of the American economy. But despite widespread fraud, discrimination, and other predatory acts during and after the recent crises, the banks have largely escaped prosecution, drawing the ire of both Democratic and Republican senators.
Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) and Louisiana Sen. David Vitter (R) renewed their calls to break up banks in Senate speeches last week, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) challenged regulators on the lack of prosecutions in a Banking Committee hearing in February. Brown and Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) wrote a letter to the Justice Dept. alleging that banks have become “too big to jail,” and Grassley has criticized the banks for having a “get out of jail free” card.
Financial prosecutions reached a 20-year low in 2011, as regulators and the Justice Dept. chose instead to settle claims with large banks over mortgage and foreclosure fraud and other scandals. But those settlements have been rife with problems, as banks have found different ways to game the settlements to their advantage.
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ABOUT Travis Waldron
Travis Waldron is a reporter/blogger for ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Travis grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, and holds a BA in journalism and political science from the University of Kentucky. Before coming to ThinkProgress, he worked as a press aide at the Health Information Center and as a staffer on Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway’s 2010 Senate campaign. He also interned at National Journal’s Hotline and was a sports writer and political columnist at the Kentucky Kernel, the University of Kentucky’s daily student newspaper.
11 comments on "Attorney General Says that the Nation’s Biggest Banks are Too-Big-To-Jail"
March 07, 2013 7:43pm
Isn’t this just another way of saying the big banks can do as they bloody well please without fear of criminal sanction?
March 07, 2013 2:08pm
This is "Eric Holder" (Fast and Furious) who arms the cartels, then allows the bank that launders their money (HSBC) to walk free. I would expect nothing else from a proven criminal collaborator.
Executing the bank CEO doesn't put the bank out of business, it just makes the next prick in the CEO office tow the line.
March 07, 2013 1:53pm
Weeks earlier, Holder, along with Obama, Breuer, and Geithner, had said that there were no criminal prosecutions of Obama's thieving Wall Street "Savvy Businessmen" buddies because NO Crimes had been committed.
They should Pick a LIE and stick with it.
Holder and Obama, as well as Congress, the 50 states' attorneys general, and the "courts" are domestic enemies of the US for enabling and protecting the largest megafraud and racketeering criminal enterprise in the history of the world.
March 08, 2013 1:15pm
Very well put...and remember that it was Clinton who signed off on the repeal of Glass-Steagall, thereby authorizing the growth of mega-banks and the explosion of corruption. Our political system is rotten from the core. It will not change until we unify and stop electing these crooks infesting both political parties.
March 07, 2013 1:31pm
The sorry DOJ talks as if the banks are people. The banks are entities, run by a multitude of people. If you prosecuted the top 10 from each bank. I mean, prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. FORCE them to sell off their assets personal, too) - with all the smaller banks in this country that are looking to grow, but legally, there should be lines to buy the assets of all these banks. How hard would it be to GIVE back assets to the former owners equal to the amount of the fraudulently taken homes - to those swindled by the mega banks. Of course, some of the funds will be needed to return those homes to the condition they were in when the banks stole them. The crooks have had a field day stealing A/C units, copper wire, piping. appliances, fixtures, and anything else they could sell for a couple of bucks. If, after all this, the banks are still too large, split them up. Create a North, South, East or West bank - TOTALLY separate from the others - to remain that way. This is one way those mega crooks can repay their victims.
March 07, 2013 12:14pm
Hey remember that extra 5 dollar fee and everyone revolted against that 5 dollar fee added to your checking account. It is the banking industries job to screw us out of every last dollar they can get their hands on from every citizen out there that is stupid enough to borrow from them. I admit it I am stupid and in debt also with a economy that is faltering it is most difficult to pay them back. We
should have a stupid tax break and forgive our debts for being stupid and a tax break for not using our college because we are so stupid and so on and so on.
I do however want to survive in a lifestyle that is comfortable am willing to work for it once the 10 million get theirs maybe I can find a job too.
I f surviving means stop using the banks thats okay and if every one demanded state run banks not for profit thats okay and if we were to loan ourselves money from those state run banks at 0% interest thats okay too. We do not have to take this shit and we can shovel it back up the banks ass.
I know it is wrong but when that guy wanted to blow up the b of a in oakland I almost would not care but I do want justice and it does seem to be fleeting and I am sure many others are going to be desperate over time due to goverment policy and bank dominion can we stop the bullshit.
March 07, 2013 11:58am
"Criminal charges against a bank — something that could threaten its existence — may also endanger the national or global economies in the case of the largest ones, because of their size and interconnectedness. That has “made it difficult for us to prosecute” some of those institutions, Holder said today at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing."
Bull-hockey...
For every one of the execrable capitalist crooks there are hundreds more ready, willing and able to take their place and continue operating the mechanism of inequality and rape and pillage...
The "business" schools of the land are churning out this trash in prodigious amounts...
March 07, 2013 11:03am
Come on Obama fans, this is your leader's appointee speaking for your leader.
The financial elites and banksters grow wealthier by the day, while more of the 99% are doomed to deepening poverty. What lame excuse do you make for Obama in this matter? Is it like the one you can't find for Obama's prolongation of the war in Afghanistan, now 5 years and counting?
March 07, 2013 10:48am
At least they are now admitting they are allowing criminality to go unpunished.
Now, how about giving lesser criminals a break. The DOJ is undermining the very foundation of our civilization.
March 08, 2013 1:43pm
Jury Nullification
You want to be heard around the world and generate some corrective action? Well then, take the following pledge:
Until our state and federal governments vigorously prosecute all financial crimes committed by financial institutions, and send the criminals to hard-time prisons...
I pledge that I will participate in jury nullification in all trials involving misdemeanors and felonies for the theft of property owned by banks and other financial institutions.
If Grover Norquist can demand oaths for voting against tax increases for the upper class, then we can demand oaths for voting against conviction of those who steal their ill-gotten profits.
March 07, 2013 2:10pm
DOJ = Dept of Jokes