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compelling case that would stand up in all courts since many<br />
Judges are already compromised by political appointments<br />
and a pro-business orientation. By another, there have been<br />
successful prosecutions of corporate criminals but usually only<br />
after prosecutors and grand juries subpoena documents, crossexamine<br />
witnesses under oath and mount forensic investigations.<br />
That is beyond the scope of any journalistic inquiry.<br />
Journalists usually go after the small stories to illustrate larger<br />
points. Remember, neither the government nor the media<br />
brought down Bernard Madoff. He did it himself.<br />
In addition, some cautiously drawn and watered down<br />
standards of proof, especially so-called proof of criminal intent<br />
may be too high to meet. Perhaps that’s why prosecutors prefer<br />
to bring conspiracy charges under the RICO laws. Yet, it is<br />
one thing to bring them against organized crime capers, and<br />
another to go after sophisticated companies with legions of<br />
lawyers, some of whom are ex-prosecutors themselves.<br />
White-collar crime prosecutions may turn on whether it<br />
can be proven that the companies involved in predatory lending<br />
and securitization knew what they were doing was wrong.<br />
What do you think they will say? (“Of course not!”) Only as<br />
a result of digging through their internal emails and memos,<br />
does a more incriminating picture and real evidence emerge.<br />
As this book was being finished, there were reports that<br />
investigations based on this type of documentation are already<br />
underway. The website DailyBeast.com featured a report from<br />
the Wall Street Journal revealing, “A Senate panel has subpoenaed<br />
financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs and<br />
Deutsche Bank, seeking evidence of fraud in last year’s mortgage-market<br />
meltdown … The congressional investigation is<br />
focusing on whether emails and other internal communications<br />
reveal that bankers privately doubted whether the mortgagerelated<br />
securities they were facilitating were as sound as their<br />
public reports suggested. Washington Mutual, now owned and<br />
integrated into JPMorgan Chase, has also been subpoenaed.
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