Is anyone surprised about the failure of the DOJ? They will bust weed shops because they were too big…the failure of the Media is one of the worst problems we face…no information and mis-information and Fox information all contribute to the problems in our country…

J. Edgar Hoover ran away from the Mafia, said they didn’t exist.

Someone needs to prod all the “starving,” defense counsel in NYC. They will all make a lot more money if DOJ starts prosecuting the white collar thugs on Wall Street.

I don’t think Breuer can be prosecuted for not bringing cases, but his membership in the bar could be challenged. I doubt he will lose his license, but the effort might send an important message.

My Congressman submitted evidence of COMMODITY MARKET MANIPULATION to the DOJ in August 12, and so far they have failed to even acknowledge receipt of that evidence. I told my Senator about this, and nary a peep have I heard from her in regard to this failure of the DOJ to respond.

Some CFTC employees donated to Barack Obama’s 08 campaign for president with the expectation that he would investigate “commodity market manipulation” they had been forced to conceal under the Bush Administration. He didn’t, and the very same people who were manipulating the markets under Bush, continued during the Obama Administration.

CFTC employees have been “forced” to overlook this commodity market manipulation if they want to keep their jobs. When the regulatory agency that was designed to protect us from “commodity market manipulators”, is forced to overlook commodity market manipulation we’re in bad shape.

This guy will just jump into another “cushy” job. These people never loose much. I am sure he thought about the day he would get busted but the consequences are so small why not risk it.

Is it still possible to bring charges?

If my post’s regarding the CFTC and the DOJ don’t connect or make sense, forgive me; I’m so riled up I can’t think straight and I’m sure my blood pressure is sky high.

They’re getting his corner office ready at Goldman right now.

I am not sure anyone regrets Enron and Arthur Andersen going out of business. But more to the point, that concern is totally outside a prosecutor’s purview. Breuer was supposed to enforce the law not play systemic risk analyst – a job he is in no way qualified for.

DOJ promulgated something called the Thompson Memo which gave “guidance” to prosecutors. It said that if the majority of employees were innocent and the company demonstrated a willingness to change the culture or circumstances that allowed the crime to be committed in the first place, DOJ could enter into a Deferred Prosecution Agreement with the company in order to save the jobs of the innocent employees.

The Memo also explicitly said, that the DP was NOT to be used as an excuse to not prosecute the individuals who had committed the crime. Over the years, the Thompson Memo has been watered down and watered down until it is now a get out of jail free card for banksters and others at the very top of any TBTF company.

This result is the exact opposite of what the Memo originally set out.

Actually, misprision of multiple felonies appears to fit: 18 USC sec. 4.

I would like to know if Eric Holder was approached and declined to speak on camera for the Frontline piece. Breuer is abominable, but Holder (and ultimately Obama) was his boss and thought Breuer was doing a heckuva job.

Maybe someone with Photoshop chops could find a shot of Bush congratulating Brownie post-Katrina and swap in Holder and Breuer’s faces. “Heckuva job, Lanny!”

Also nice project for someone with time would be a scorecard infographic (unless it already exists):

eyebrow: Obama/Holder’s DOJ
hed: Prosecutorial
LH col subhed: Zeal
RH col subhed: Negligence

No shortage of righteous whistleblowers, Aaron Swartz, etc., etc. for the Zeal column, no shortage of banksters, torturers, etc., etc., for Negligence.

DO(in)J became the enforcement arm of the money mafia around 2003 when the taps were installed on the trunk lines at ATT, Comey-Ashcroft were booted, the creation of “homeland security,” gonzolezes installed, congress’ approval of taps retroactively and Roves’ removal of the 6 US States Attorneys in 2006 pretty much made DO(in)J a political/enforcment arm of WH. Example: Alabama Governor Don Siegalman started 6.5 year fed prison term last Sept despite over 100 current and past USA’s briefs on his behalf. Kagan rejected appeal to Supremes.

The old Mafia mostly “honored” its extortion (and “justice”) contracts and tended to leave the victims with their life and business; DO(in)J takes it all.

When o failed to appoint ANY USA’s, the corps rule was secured.

I don’t know about that. The Frontline piece clearly demonstrates Breuer’s participation in this cover-up. If there were any honest prosecutors at DOJ, this would become a RICO case.

It’s time to face the facts, DOJ failed on one of the most important legal issues of our time. They have no one to blame for their bad reputation but themselves.

Lord knows I wouldn’t want to drift into conspiracy-theories or anything, but I’d say DOJ is pretty close to an accessory-after-the-fact.

In the context of a crime-thriller plot, the Thompson Memo mentioned by Cynthia Kouril @10 constitutes a direct, if covert instruction to stifle any impulse to prosecute.

It is common knowledge that similar memos instructing corporate subordinates to cooperate with prosecutors/regulators requests for information means ‘fire-up the document shredders’ in new-speak.

Can anyone here say John Mitchell ?

Thanks for the update on this. It’s doubtful that we’ll see much coverage of this elsewhere.

Did Frontline do a “hit piece” on the DOJ? Well, yeah. So? For once, the so-called “main stream media” did their job.

And now the MOTU are pissed off… don’t pay any attention to the CROOKS behind the curtain ripping you off royally Every. Single. Day.

Yeah, but how many dangerous (eyeroll) whistle-blowers and weed dispensary operators have they prosecuted and put out of business? Those are the real criminals and threats to the nation. Don’t you feel safer now?

Interesting, DSW. Yesterday masaccio commented on my comment on his diary about Breuer leaving, saying he didn’t think this was connected to the PBS piece, and that maybe the administration did not even notice the broadcast (comment #30), and I allowed that he might be right (#34). It looks like I should have maintained the hypothesis of a causal connection (#22), as you do in this post.

The WAPO story doesn’t say Lanny Breuer has resigned yet. It just says their sources inside the DOJ told them he is going to resign. We have been hearing rumors of this before the movie was even completed and other jurnos have speculated about it. So while the timing of the WAPO story looks great for Martin’s Frontline film…right now it’s just coincidence

For the crop of politicians we now have, from “not cooperating with the media” it’s a small step to harassing the media [who are not 'friendly'], to setting up a government approved media (not much different from access journalism as it’s practiced today).

Pravda here we come.

Hi, Teri. Stick around. We would love to hear more from you about recent developments/discovery in the lawsuits filed by Patterson Belknap which Frontline mentioned several times. One part of the show I missed was Schneiderman’s answer to the question(s) about why he didn’t file complaints similar to what Patterson Belknap filed. Can you fill us in?

Cynthia, any thoughts on O’s nomination of Mary Jo White to lead the SEC?

Holder’s law firm represented or still represents goldman sachs and the republican national commitee. obama knew this-just another brick in the wall. what will be done by the left-nothing.
no real progressive dhallanges to bluedogs
no boycott of media outlets that provide the critical cover for corruption.
no boycott of media advertisers of corrupt programing.
cowardly sellout dem leaders like this would have lost ww2
but,but michelle obama rolled her eyes what a dem win.
YOU ALL SUCK AND ARE GETTING WHAT YOU DESERVE

Even assuming deferred prosecution (DP, as you call it) is the only significant weapon DOJ has, DOJ has not used that weapon against the big banks for their criminal fraud in destroying their own underwriting standards in order to finance predatory lending. Please correct me if I am wrong about that. The past four years have seen something close to deferred prosecution on the LIBOR frauds, but none on the RMBS frauds.

P.S. The Thompson Memo was issued during Shrub’s tenure, before the global megabanks destroyed the world economy. When the new preznit took office, circumstances were mightily different and there was no legal obstacle to the new AG rescinding or toughening up the Thompson Memo. But Holder did nothing to promote prosecutions of the global megabanks, and now he is allowing his flacks to attack the press.

Forgive them for they will not understand they have subcontracted their souls?

Thank you.

Glad to be wrong.

But they’ve crossed the line from normal “failure” and have become “criminally complicit”. Resignation? Nope. He needs to experience a revamped, fully functioning justice system as one of its clients on the receiving end. Along with all the rest of them.

Like the way you think.

Much appreciated.

Martin Smith, the director, was actually asking the NY AG why ‘he copied PBWT’s’ complaint against JPM/Bear/EMC. The NY AG side stepped that question. Here is what I’ve have said on RT’s Keiser Report over a year ago and I reported at the trade publication I wrote for – DealFlow Media.

Around April 2011 NY Assemblyman Morelle reached out to the NY AG and asked him to investigate the Bear traders under Tom Marano for criminal insurance fraud. They came to that conclusion after they read my stories at The Atlantic and the Ambac v. EMC/JPM suit PBWT filed. The NY AG then went to the PBWT lawyers and asked them to share evidence – as told to me buy people in the room.

I really thought he was going to charge JPM or the Bear traders criminally – which is actually what I told Martin Smith in our interview that did not make it into the movie. It was disappointing to see only a civil suit even though it’s for a large amount – around $22bn against $JPM.

FDL readers can find links to most of the 2.5 yrs of reporting I did on this saga at http://www.teribuhl.com or at RT’s TV host site http://www.maxkeiser.com

the failure of the Media is one of the worst problems we face

On the contrary, this was a media SUCCESS. The notion that the corporate press’s job is to “afflict the comfortable; comfort the afflicted” has been killed decades ago. Throw in the end of the Fairness Doctrine and Clinton’s deregulation, and you got what the corporate press is today. They exist to please the shareholder/investor class, and please government by doing everything in its power to keep the couch-taters dumbed-down, entertained, distracted, and therefore perpetually on the flagsie-wavesy hopey-changey plantation.

Full stop.

There is no squishy center, no conspiracy, and failure is not an option. In that regard, this is a media SUCCESS. It did exactly what it was designed and bankrolled to so — as evidenced by its chief beneficiaries.

A media failure is what Wikileaks and the whistleblowers did — i.e. provided “the enemy” (i.e. the great unwashed) with an exhaustive paper-trail of unvarnished, unadulterated, and bipartisan state-sanctioned abuse, crime, corruption, and malfeasance.

Thank you for your heroism.

I kick in $20/month to FDL, some more on a one time basis, when I can.

How much are you donating?

If not to FDL, to what groups do you donate money/resources?

But as you say on your website (1-23-13 5PM update), it looks like the Frontline report and your own reporting have stirred things up at DOJ. So does the latter’s threat which DSW reports in this post. I suggest that while Breuer’s departure had been in the works, the broadcast caused DOJ to leak the departure to WaPo, hoping to appease some audience or another. In any case, I have some choice land on the east side of Staten Island to sell to anyone who believes that Breuer is leaving to spend more time with his family or whatever.

wow! Thank you very much. I will follow Beall’s lead and go check your website.

ditto. I really was hoping Cynthia could hang around a little longer. I keep forgetting to look at her diaries, so maybe she has a new one in the works.

Good to see the government confirm that they use the threat of denial of access to keep the media in line.

Way Way Way Way BEFORE THEM ALL ….. http://www.bing.com/search?q=Trillions+Stolen+Land+Fraud+Bank+Looting+S%26L+Debacle++Witham&go=&qs=n&form=QBRE&pq=trillions+stolen+land+fraud+bank+looting+s%26l+debacle+witham&sc=0-0&sp=-1&sk=

It seemed to me that all over the world intelligent people were waking up to the indignity and absurdity of being endangered, restrained, and impoverished, by a mere uncritical adhesion to traditional governments, traditional ideas of economic life, and traditional forms of behaviour, and that these awaking intelligent people must constitute first a protest and then a creative resistance to the inertia that was stifling and threatening us.

1928 – The Open Conspiracy (instead of our puzzling conspiracies)

Mr. Breuer, of course, is just the public face of the DoJ’s and Mr. Obama’s priority to protect the FIRE sector as if their lives, or at least their political fortunes, depended on it. His falling on his sword for the good of his tribe should not deter critically examining those for whom he has temporarily interrupted his career. Incidentally, it will be interesting to see what soft landing his sponsors provide him.

Thanks Teri Buhl, but be careful referencing Kaiser Report. It’s not FDL approved. Feel free to mention the New York Times as much as you want, but the clique may come in an start making snarky comments if you mention the Kaiser Report. Nothing referencing the Kaiser Report gets front paged at FDL and nothing ever will. Matt Taibi is the absolute limit. Too few degrees of separation to Alex Jones. No, no. Can’t have that around here. Everything must be done to restrict progressives from having discussions with people who don’t describe themselves as progressives. FDL goes from the New York Times to Matt Taibi. Anything outside that and they bring in the professional name callers.

I’m just so damned tired of it all, and failing to see the trigger that will force change. If someone had told me in 2008 that we’d still be humming right along in the beginning of 2013 as though nothing untoward, much less criminal, has happened, I would have laughed, but here we are. I suspect my belief in imminent collapse is fueled by a distinct lack of imagination at the ways they can continue to keep the plates spinning.

Frontline did a great service with this expose. Now it’s on the shoulders of Holder and Obama. Thank you Martin Smith. Waiting to see if anything comes of it.

Ha, well that will teach Frontline – they won’t get anything from the DOJ anymore!

Well, the American people welcome you to the get nothing club! We aren’t getting anything remotely resembling justice from the DOJ either.

Don’t hold your breath….Prosecuting Lanny Breuer under the espionage act comes in 5..4..3..2..1….

Get used to it. The class war is over and we lost – a long time ago.