Eric Holder: You Have Failed This Nation - RESIGN!
– by David Matthews 2
It has been whispered about for years now.
People had been theorizing that this was going on.
But it wasn’t until it came out of his own mouth did we know for certain that this was the truth.
The banks that are dubbed “Too Big To Fail” are also apparently too big to be held accountable under the laws of this nation.
This is no longer idle speculation. This is no longer rumor.
This is straight out of the mouth of one Eric Holder, Attorney General of the United States. Under oath, no less!
Testifying at a Senate Banking Committee this past week, Mr. Holder said the following:
“But 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. I think that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large.”
In other words, Mr. Holder is claiming that the banking institution is so pervasive that it cannot be held to account under our legal system for any crimes that they commit. Any crimes! To do so, in his own words, threatens the national economy if not the world’s economy.
Mister Holder, this is unacceptable.
For years, Americans have had to watch helplessly as our economy spiral downward on a level that has not been seen since the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Tens of thousands of Americans have lost their homes, with millions more struggling with ever-dwindling funds to keep their homes.
And then came the realization that many of those foreclosed homes were taken through a Rube Goldberg system of fraud and deception. Between robo-signing companies and courts rubber-stamping out-and-out fraud, we have been witness to the biggest real estate swindle since the Manhattan purchase. Worse yet, this is a criminal activity that is still causing damage to communities coast-to-coast. Many of those foreclosed houses are left to rot, depressing the property values of their neighbors.
These banks did not just steal houses. They stole more than just homes. They stole whole neighborhoods. They created blight and entropy through their greed and indifference to hard-working Americans.
These banks are the very reason why the Great Recession is still hurting the United States, Mister Holder. They are why this economy is not recovering as it should. It is why our country’s debt is not just growing but expanding exponentially year after year. This is why towns and cities and states don’t have the revenue anymore for education and infrastructure. They cannot pay for their own police departments because of the homes foreclosed upon by the banks.
We gave these banks billions in taxpayer money, not only to bail them out but for them to then help out the American people. But instead of help, Mister Holder, the American people have been given nothing but grief.
The more we hear from the banks, the more we hear about criminal activity done in the name of God-Almighty profits. We hear from families of servicemen deployed overseas who have been foreclosed upon in direct violation of a federal law. We hear from working families that have lost their homes even though they did nothing wrong.
If you don’t understand the terminology, Mister Holder, that last part is otherwise called larceny. It’s one of the major crimes.
But what really upsets me is the realization that I have to remind you of that, Mister Holder. A lone American citizen should not be the one having to remind the Attorney General of the United States about what his job entails!
Nor should I have to be the one to remind you of how things are supposed to work in these situations.
When Enron and WorldCom failed, your predecessors pulled up the paddy wagon and frog-marched executives in front of the media. We jailed Martha Stewart. We threw the supposedly “smartest men in the room” behind bars. These were people with enough political clout to orchestrate the recall of the Governor of California! People who had given sizable amounts of money to entrenched politicians from both dominant political parties.
Yes, the economy was in a tailspin then. Yes, businesses were shut down and countless jobs were lost. But it didn’t matter then. They broke the law and they stood trial for it.
When the Savings and Loan institutions fell, your predecessors pulled up the paddy wagon and frog-marched executives in front of the media. This included Lincoln Savings and Loan, owned by Charles Keating, and his own reach tainted several U.S. Senators, not to mention continuing to ruin the presidential aspirations of one Senator John McCain.
Yes, the economy was in a tailspin then. Yes, businesses were shut down and countless jobs were lost. But it didn’t matter then. They broke the law and they stood trail for it.
And not all of these people that were arrested were successfully convicted. Ken Lay, CEO of Enron, died before his conviction could be appealed, and thus was given a posthumous exoneration. Some of those corporate executives and financial “geniuses” managed to escape justice. But it didn’t matter, because the public was reassured through these arrests and indictments that the executives, these so-called “smartest people in the room” and “masters of the universe”, were not above the law.
That was the rule that the American people have heard time and time again. No one is above the law. No person, no entity, no organization, and no institution is above the law. We have impeached a sitting President of the United States on that very principle! And we did so for a crime that pales in comparison to the ones facing the banking institutions today.
It is a policy that has been codified in your own department, Mister Holder. Your own attorneys are told to bring charges against any company, no matter the impact, because even bringing indictments can bring positive change to the system tainted by systemic corruption.
And it is a policy that you have voided with your testimony to the Senate Banking Committee.
By your own words, sir, you claim that the financial institutions cannot be held to account for their criminal activities. That to bring even one criminal charge against the banks deemed “Too Big To Fail” would result in a hyper-hysterical reaction that would destroy the global economy.
We have ways to deal with any institution deemed “too big”. Almost a century ago we broke up Standard Oil for that very reason. Forty years ago we broke up the original AT&T. It’s called the Sherman Antitrust Act. It’s the very reason why corporate mergers have to be approved through your department first before they can take effect.
But that brings another scathing question: if you know these institutions are too large to be held to account, then why hasn’t your department invoked the Sherman Act to have them broken up?
However, let’s get brutally honest here, Mister Holder… I don’t expect you to give a clear and honest answer to that question. You’ve made it quite clear in your testimony to the Senate where your true loyalties lie, and it is not with the very American people that you took an oath to serve.
That is why what I have to say next should be taken in all seriousness.
Eric Holder, you have failed the American people in your role as Attorney General. By siding with banks instead of the American people, you have broken the trust the people have in the very system you claim to champion. At the very least, sir, you are guilty of cowardice, if not ineptitude.
Mister Holder, you need to leave.
I am calling on all Americans to demand your resignation, Mister Holder. It has become apparent that there can be no justice for the American people when it comes to the out-and-out criminal activities of the financial institutions. Countless thousands have already suffered needlessly through the bureaucratic nightmares of the banking industry because of your refusal to hold them accountable.
How many more hard-working Americans have to suffer because of your ineptitude, Mister Holder? How many more have to lose their homes through no fault of their own because of your “fear” of the banks and their hyper-hysterical threats of global financial collapse?
Our system of government is based on the rule of law, Mister Holder. That means that nobody, not even the President of the United States, is above it. That includes big multinational corporations, and even the big banks. Your refusal to hold them to account for out-and-out criminal activities is in violation of that very principle. As long as you are in office, there is no rule of law anymore. There is only rule of the banks; and that is a despotism that sorely needs to be overthrown at its earliest opportunity, starting, Mister Holder, with you.
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