Elizabeth Warren: Banks Get Wrist Slaps While Drug Dealers Get Jail

[Mayhem]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/07/elizabeth-warren-hsbc-money-laundering_n_2830166.html

Sen. Elizabeth Warren unloaded on bank regulators Thursday about the fact that British bank HSBC is still doing business in the U.S., with no criminal charges filed against it, despite confessing to what one regulator called "egregious" money laundering violations.

Her comments came just a day after the attorney general of the United States confessed that some banks are so big and important that they are essentially above the law. His Justice Department's failure to bring any criminal charges against HSBC or its employees is Exhibit A of that problem.

During a Senate Banking Committee hearing about money laundering, Warren (D-Mass.) grilled officials from the Treasury Department, Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency about why HSBC, which recently paid $1.9 billion to settle money laundering charges, wasn't criminally prosecuted and shut down in the U.S. Nor were any individuals from HSBC charged with any crimes, despite the bank confessing to laundering billions of dollars for Mexican drug cartels and rogue regimes like Iran and Libya over several years.

Defenders of the Justice Department say that a criminal conviction could have been a death penalty for the bank, causing widespread damage to the economy. Warren wanted to know why the death penalty wasn't warranted in this case.

"They did it over and over and over again across a period of years. And they were caught doing it, warned not to do it and kept right on doing it, and evidently making profits doing it," Warren said of HSBC. "How many billions of dollars do you have to launder for drug lords and how many economic sanctions do you have to violate before someone will consider shutting down a financial institution like this?"

The regulator she was questioning, David Cohen, the Treasury Department's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, repeatedly refused to answer the question. Like the other regulators at the hearing, he said that his department has no authority to shut down a bank unless the Justice Department -- not represented at the hearing -- convicts the bank of a crime. He said that Treasury had come down as hard as possible on HSBC. But he wouldn't answer Warren's question about when a bank deserves to be shut down in the U.S.

"You sit in Treasury and you try to enforce these laws, and I've read all of your testimony and you tell me how vigorously you want to enforce these laws, but you have no opinion on when it is that a bank should be shut down for money laundering?" Warren finally asked. "Not even an opinion?"

Another regulator, Fed Governor Jerome Powell, said closing a bank is appropriate when that bank has been convicted of a crime. But he also said that only the Justice Department has the authority to prosecute a bank for a crime.

The regulators said they did answer Justice Department questions about the potential repercussions of convicting HSBC, but offered no opinion about whether the Justice Department should do so.

A frustrated Warren, who has sounded off on the issue of big banks repeatedly in the past week, was less constrained.

"If you're caught with an ounce of cocaine, the chances are good you're gonna go to jail. If it happens repeatedly, you may go to jail for the rest of your life," Warren said. "But evidently if you launder nearly a billion dollars for drug cartels and violate our international sanctions, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your bed at night -- every single individual associated with this. And I think that's fundamentally wrong."

I love this woman. LOVE HER!

 

[Mayhem]

 

[PlumpRump]

Holy Christ. I'm in firm agreement with Elizabeth Warren. I think I may have just had a stroke. As many of you well know, I don't begrudge people or corporations making a buck, but the bankocracy in this country, and in several others, is outright criminal.

 

[Mayhem]

Holy Christ. I'm in firm agreement with Elizabeth Warren. I think I may have just had a stroke. As many of you well know, I don't begrudge people or corporations making a buck, but the bankocracy in this country, and in several others, is outright criminal.

See, that's the thing. We go at it incessantly, Republican vs. Democrat, Liberal vs. Conservative, Right vs. Left.....and all the while it's the banks that are ass-raping all of us.

 

[Jagger69]

Holy Christ. I'm in firm agreement with Elizabeth Warren. I think I may have just had a stroke. As many of you well know, I don't begrudge people or corporations making a buck, but the bankocracy in this country, and in several others, is outright criminal.

See, that's the thing. We go at it incessantly, Republican vs. Democrat, Liberal vs. Conservative, Right vs. Left.....and all the while it's the banks that are ass-raping all of us.

That's exactly it. There is indeed an "Evil Empire" and it is embodied by the American financial institution (I love that reference...."Bankocracy"....that's exactly what it is!) and their corrupt partners in government who sanction their misdeeds. The establishment likes nothing better than to polarize the masses against each other while they steal us all blind. Go get 'em, Liz! Congressional leaders who display integrity like she does are rare indeed.

 

[meesterperfect]

So what can be done and by whom?

 

[Jagger69]

So what can be done and by whom?

Have law enforcement and the justice department bring charges against those who are implicated in criminal activity, try them in court and sentence them to prison if found guilty.

 

[darkwarrior3007]

Have law enforcement and the justice department bring charges against those who are implicated in criminal activity, try them in court and sentence them to prison if found guilty.

It sounds so simple, doesn't it?

 

[Jagger69]

It sounds so simple, doesn't it?

It should be. It's right there in the constitution. As Edmund Burke said, "All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing." Problem here is, Liz Warren can't be the only "good man" in order for justice to prevail. "Good men" are a scarce commodity in the nation's capital as well as Wall Street these days.

 

[Rey C.]

While it's nice that Elizabeth Warren is now saying what I and many others have been saying for about ten years, the problem is Eric Holder (and all of his predecessors) refuses to prosecute the top international bankers who do these things. Holder even said as much. Ain't gonna happen. People generally don't prosecute the people they work for, ya know. It's not a Democrat or Republican issue. It's a corruption issue. And they're all corrupt.

Has no one ever wondered how the Mexican and South American cartels and the Italian and Russian/Israeli organized crime groups are able to transfer hundreds of billions of dollars all around the world without any of it being detected? Seriously? And yet, back in 2002 or 2003, the U.S. government was able to trace some $50 money orders from the U.S. to Al Qaeda. Yeah. Right.

 

[Rey C.]

........

 

[zeeblofowl_1969]

Commend Mrs Warren for her efforts a member of congress actually speaking about an actual issue is kind of refreshing. Hopefully Rand and/or McCain will start trying to address true and relevant issues in the future.

 

[Mayhem]

 

[Ace Boobtoucher]

Please. "Integrity" and "Elizabeth Warren" are words that shouldn't collide in the same sentence. It's like saying Keith Richards is a model of moderation.

 

[Mayhem]

Please. "Integrity" and "Elizabeth Warren" are words that shouldn't collide in the same sentence. It's like saying Keith Richards is a model of moderation.

Would you care to back that up with something? Are you saying the banks are completely in right? Do you have someone else who will step up and hold the financial sector responsible for the mess we're in? Or are you just indiscriminately spraying jalapeño breath all over everything?

 

[Philbert]

Is it true Ms Warren has discovered she is 1/64th Montinard , and 1/32 Hmong? Has she completely stopped gaming the system with her Native American minority status since being caught out?
I guess she's too busy standing up for law and moral integrity to bother with such low-level fraud...after all, as so many here claim, she is a politician and all politicians are liars and crooks...she's just not too good at it.
The banking system, on the other hand...

 

[Philbert]

Please. "Integrity" and "Elizabeth Warren" are words that shouldn't collide in the same sentence. It's like saying Keith Richards is a model of moderation.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Ace Boobtoucher again.

 

[Rattrap]

Would you care to back that up with something? Are you saying the banks are completely in right? Do you have someone else who will step up and hold the financial sector responsible for the mess we're in? Or are you just indiscriminately spraying jalapeño breath all over everything?

He's probably just got the usual angry, partisan rancor. I keep suggesting he get himself a massage or something to lighten up, and he hurls homophobic slurs at me in return. It's a love-hate relationship. :o

I can't say I know much about Warren and I totally missed all the noise about her election, so I won't defend her on the whole - I will say, though, that I heartily applaud her efforts as far as the bank topic is concerned.

 

[xfire]

Having Native American heritage hasn't always been something people were eager to disclose, and still when people do embrace their Native roots they're made fun of, like Elizabeth Warren or Ward Churchill. Pretty pathetic that people target ethnicity as something to attack.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ht-over-elizabeth-warrens-heritage-explained/

 

[Philbert]

Having Native American heritage hasn't always been something people were eager to disclose, and still when people do embrace their Native roots they're made fun of, like Elizabeth Warren or Ward Churchill. Pretty pathetic that people target ethnicity as something to attack.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ht-over-elizabeth-warrens-heritage-explained/

Good riposte...not. Coming from a documented homophobe.

Warren lied about her heritage, lied about using it (the lie) to her advantage, and lied about claiming it in the first place. As this article states.

Other articles also tracked her fake allegation of Native American bloodline, boiling down to her Ma Ma saying her Pa Pa had high cheeckbones and they thought he might have had some NA in his background.
No records, no evidence except she claimed it before being hired on at Harvard, who crowed over having such diversity in their staff. Then she didn't claim it when applying to the U of T Law School.

Q.)How do you know Elizabeth Warren is lying?
A.) Her lips are moving.

Ward Churchill? A screaming asshole; who even the University he was a prof at fired his pro 9/11 terrorist ass. Nobody gave a shit about some NA bloodline in his background. He was a documented asshole whether he was Nambian or Choctaw.