Phony Crown Jewel

"The attorney general, Eric. H. Holder Jr. [EH] told the commission that the FBI was investigating more than 2,800 mortgage fraud cases, almost five times as many as the 534 inquiries in 2004. Of the cases, 1,842 involved more than $1 mllion in losses. As of November, federal charges related to mortgage fraud were pending against 846 defendants. Lanny A Brown, the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's criminal division, said prosecutors were focused not only on lenders that underwrote risky mortgages, but also on companies that packaged and sold the mortgages to investors. ... Denise Voight Crawford, the Texas securities commissioner, ... gave the SEC an overall grade of D-minus, but it regional offices a grade of A-plus. ... 'Prior to about 10 years ago, the SEC, was, in our estimation, the crown jewel of the federal agencies'," my emphasis, Sewell Chan at the NYT, 15 January 2010, link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/business/economy/15panel.html.

"[EH] ... told the bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that the FBI is investigating 2,800 mortgage fraud cases, up 400 percent from five yeara ago, and that he hopes to have 50 new FBI agenst and 155 new attorneys working financial-crimes cases in the coming year. Still, Holder said, 'our resources, even given those additions, are relatively limited, and these cases are complex ones'," Daniel Wagner & Tom Baum at the Houston Chronicle, 15 January 2010: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/6816692.html.

Crawford damns with faint praise. Consider what the other federal agencies look like. Brown's comment is interesting. Is he saying the DOJ is "focused on [protecting] companies that packaged and sold the mortgages"? He doesn't say prosecuting.

Holder speaks the truth. With limited resources he takes on small cases instead of Wall Street giants like: Citigroup, Vampire Squid and the rest. Who needs this guy?