White Collar Fraud Legislation Passed - 2

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On this date, in 2009, Dredd Blog received an email from Senator Leahy.

 It contained, then, a photograph at a photo-op in the White House.

Since then the photo has been removed from its location on the Internet.

And since I know of no prosecutions of Wall Street people who have been charged with fraud, I left it blank for effect, because if it was an accurate photo now, it would show the government handing big bundles of money to those Dylan Ratigan calls Greedy Bastards:

It is no exaggeration to say that since the 1980s, much of the American (and global) financial sector has become criminalized, creating an industry culture that tolerates or even encourages systematic fraud. The behavior that caused the mortgage bubble and financial crisis was a natural outcome and continuation of this pattern, rather than some kind of economic accident.

It is important to understand that this behavior really is seriously criminal. We are not talking about neglecting some bureaucratic formality. We are talking about deliberate concealment of financial transactions that aided terrorism, nuclear weapons proliferation, and large-scale tax evasion; assisting in concealment of criminal assets and activities by others; and directly committing frauds that substantially worsened the worst financial bubbles and crises since the Depression.

None of this conduct was punished in any significant way

(Huffpo, Charles Ferguson). Anyway, the text of that 2009 post follows:

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Dear [Dredd],

Check out the photo I snapped of the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act at yesterday's White House signing ceremony!

It's time to crack down on the financial fraudsters who have wreaked havoc on our economy and America's hard-working families -- and now we have the tools to do it.

Yesterday I joined President Obama at the White House as he signed the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act into law, a bill I wrote to provide federal law enforcers with the resources they need to go after white-collar criminals.

With your help, and thanks to the support of more than 20,000 people who emailed their Senators and Representatives through the LeahyForVermont.com website, Congress passed a strong, bipartisan bill to tackle the scourge of fraud and recover taxpayer money lost due to illegal financial dealings.

The Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act will protect Americans by:

* Increasing resources for federal investigators and prosecutors to go after cases of financial fraud,

* Modernizing fraud and money laundering statutes to deal with the growing wave of fraud,

* Strengthening the False Claims Act to better equip the Justice Department to recover the proceeds of fraud, and

* Establishing a Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to investigate the root causes of the economic and financial crisis.

Now that President Obama has signed this important bill into law, the LeahyForVermont.com community can chalk up yet another legislative victory for the American people.

Thank you for all that you have done to put the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act on the President's desk -- and on the books.

Sincerely,

Patrick Leahy
U.S. Senator

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The series that deals with the plunder barons, i.e., wall street, can be found on the Series Posts Page under BANKSTERS.