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NYC DA Morgenthau Blasts Feds On Financial Investigations

imagesThe Wall Street Journal has a fascinating and free ranging interview of New York City District Attorney Robert Morgenthau in today’s edition. Morgenthau, as you may know, is the real live template for the original DA on NBC’s Law & Order, Adam Schiff. Still young at age 90, Morgenthau will retire next Thursday after over 35 years as the chief District Attorney for New York.

The entire piece is well worth the read, but of particular interest, in light of the financial meltdown we have just lived through, and may yet again the way the Wall Street Banksters are cranking their same old casino back up, is the broadside Morgenthau lands on the Federal oversight and investigation of financial fraud.

These big criminal forfeitures support his $80 million budget, but they are also the product of Mr. Morgenthau’s unique legacy among district attorneys: his national and global reach. Such resources have allowed him to prosecute complex international business cases. Combined with his jurisdiction in the world’s financial capital, he has become in a sense the world’s district attorney.

Thomas Jefferson would have liked this bastion of local power as part of a federal system, but it is not always celebrated by federal officials. “I’m sure it [annoys] the hell out of them,” Mr. Morgenthau observes.

The feeling is mutual. The D.A. says that while he’s had to deal with the federal bureaucracy for decades, “it has just gotten worse” and “they ought to burn it down and start all over again. It’s extremely worrisome.”

For example, he says, “We had a lot of trouble with the Treasury Department” in his recent case against Credit Suisse, in which the bank coughed up $536 million and admitted to aiding Iran and other rogue nations in violating economic sanctions. The feds, as they did in a similar settlement with the British bank Lloyds, wanted only civil penalties.

Mr. Morgenthau would have none of it. He says Credit Suisse had been “stonewalling us” and only struck a deal after he threatened to bring criminal charges to a grand jury. “We would have gotten an indictment,” he says. (emphasis added)

It is a great snapshot of a one of a kind force of legal nature, Robert Morgenthau, and there are several other interesting topics; I recommend reading the entire article.

As to the portion of Morgenthau I quoted though, “Feds only wanted civil penalties and not interested in using criminal charges” to crack open the case and bring accountability for the Wall Street Banksters; sound familiar? It should, it is the exact same conclusion that blew the mind of SDNY Judge Jed Rakoff Read more