This article was written for The South Florida Law Blog by Roy Oppenheim.
The Mighty Elephant: Banks Representing the Too Large to Fail, Too Large To Jail – Oppenheim Law
Blog Theory.
U.S. Attorney Eric Holder, the man charged with upholding the laws of this country, has finally recognized the elephant in the room.
During a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting this week, Holder finally admitted what the rest of us have been saying for a long time: There are banks in America that are too big to fail!
Ironically, American Banker, the very same publication read by those Holder criticized, was among the first to report the news.
Said Holder: “I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if we do prosecute — if we do bring a criminal charge — it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy.”
You can read his remarks here.
Sadly, he offers no solutions to what has become an epidemic of fraud that led to one of the worst economic crisis in our country. By allowing banks to perpetrate fraud by selling mortgage securities they knew were not worth the paper they were written on, the Justice Department, in a way can be considered just as guilty for failing to hold banks to the fire.
It’s like the courts saying a murderer can’t be prosecuted because he is 6’9”, weighs 400 pounds and is too big to jail. Holder’s argument is simply not defensible.
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