AIG's Joe Cassano: Whatcha Gonna Do When They Come For You? (The Eric Holder Prosecutorial No-Show)
Flashback to a time (April 2009) when we believed prosecution was imminent for AIG's Joe Cassano. We have since learned that Eric Holder is a Wall Street shill and that Geithner made a secret visit to NY AG Andrew Cuomo asking him to back off financial prosecutions for the sake of financial stability.
Take a trip down prosecutorial memory lane...
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The vultures have begun their death spiral toward the soulless corpse of Joseph J. Cassano. Ask Joe if payback's a bitch. Last seen biking through the streets of Buenos Aires, Jose might be looking for a new home, preferably in a locale without one of those pesky extradition treaties.
For AIG villain and arrogant bastard Joe "not to be flippant, but I can't foresee any scenario under which AIG will owe even $1 dollar for CDS obligations" Cassano, the walls are getting closer and the air is being sucked out of the room. What is it about vultures? They tend to eat the juicy parts first.
ABC News is reporting somewhat vaguely that federal prosecutors and others including the FBI are "closing in on the AIG executive whose suspect investments cost the insurance giant hundreds of billions of dollars. The government is investigating whether or not 54-year old Brooklyn-native Joseph Cassano committed criminal fraud in virtually bankrupting the company."
"Closing in" is intentionally mushy and could mean anything, but at a minimum it is evidence that investigators are humping the Cassano trail. There is more color from the ABC report:
An ABC News investigation found that Cassano set up some dozens of separate companies, some off-shore, to handle the transactions, effectively keeping them off the books of AIG and out of sight of regulators in the U.S. and the United Kingdom. "This is the other very important issue underneath the AIG scandal," said Blum. "All of these contracts were moved offshore for the express purpose of getting out from under regulation and tax evasion."
Not to be out-maneuvered, the House Oversight committee wants a piece of the action. TPM reported last week that investigators for the committee intend to interview Cassano (like Joe's coming back from London voluntarily) about his role in AIGFP and the destruction of life as we once knew it to be.
Separately, ABC is reporting that other government investigators including federal prosecutors are looking into more general corporate malfeasance among officers of AIG.
The lesson here: Painting a rosy scenario while disguising losses will get you a trip to federal prison.
Slideshow from Obama Bank CEO Summit
Jun 15, 2011 at 2:36 AM
Reader Comments (18)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/16/over-8-in-10-corporations_n_158693.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/17/business/17tax.html
AIG: Before Credit Default Swaps, There Was Reinsurance
http://us1.institutionalriskanalytics.com/pub/IRAstory.asp?tag=351
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/04/aig-before-cds-there-was-reinsurance/#more-22986
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/20871.html
You just made my day with this post on Cassano. :)
Anyhow, the most interesting tidbit, I thought, was O'Bama's comment that only his administration stood between the CEO's and the "pitchforks." What a fucking idiot. The politicians are going to be the first ones on the receiving end of MY pitchfork. If BHO wants to play-act at being FDR, he's getting the pitchfork. Let's be clear: Ken Lewis and Jamie Dimon couldn't take two cents from me unless Uncle Sam did it for them. In all honesty, every last one of them needs to go. Obama, Summers, Turbo, the Israeli guy, Dimon, Lewis, Mack, Pandit the Bandit...on down the line. I could never understand how something like the French Revolution ever got started. Now I know.
Maybe it is intentional that they are making distribution of the heist spoils very conspicuous so the masses know who to lynch. It'd be like Konrad Adenauer distributing Nazi gold back to the original plunderers or their surrogates directly post-WWII.
"No gentlemen, you don't have the option of returning a portion of the spoils for clemency. As a consolation though, here is Xe Worldwide's (f/k/a Blackwater) phone number. We will be disseminating your names, photos, emails, phone numbers, and exhaustive addresses/likely whereabouts à la 'Most-wanted Iraqi playing cards' momentarily. Sleep well." -- Hypothetical anonymous cabinet official with a backbone or a sliver of a conscience.
No, it's clear Obama's handlers are giving the press a big helping of blame-the-other-guy (Mmm... delicious...scapegoat sooo yummy....) so the administration can turn tail and run the other way. I think you're right and I think this is a real change in WH strategy -- probably because they themselves are worried about the pitchforks. Funny, don't I remember POTUS saying something about how "The buck stops with me" ?
Of course, let's not forget -- not that the people on this site are big on forgetting -- that at the same time Obama was playing tough with the big boys, Turbo was slogging away at Tarp II (or is it Tarp III?) so he could give them more of our money. If this administration has talent for anything, it's for saying one thing and then contradicting it with another. That's why it's important for all of us to keep the battle lines simple when we talk to other people, write to the media, or call our congressmen: OUR money is being taken from us and given to pay off the super-rich who made bad bets. The beneficiaries include the managements, the bondholders, and the derivatives counterparties.
Tough talk and empty promises are just smoke and noise to confuse the taxpayers.
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/932-Wheres-My-Pitchfork.html
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/04/summers/index.html
George Carlin was spot on. But we knew that.
Nice find.
And nice work, Glenn Greenwald. Four prongs! I'm writing a letter to the editor this weekend about our hapless Congressman and his support for the Bailout ("to save Indiana jobs and get credit flowing again." Ha! What a chump.). This revelation might provide some good ammunition in said letter. Thanks!
"The government wants to control the banks, just as it now controls GM and Chrysler, and will surely control the health industry in the not-too-distant future. Keeping them TARP-stuffed is the key to control. And for this intensely political president, mere influence is not enough. The White House wants to tell 'em what to do. Control. Direct. Command."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123879833094588163.html
The insurer, which put itself into run-off and ceased writing new mortgage insurance policies in the middle of last year, said late Wednesday that it had received a corrective order from its regulator, the Illinois Director of Insurance, limiting its payout on claims to 60 percent. The remaining 40 percent of a claim will essentially take the form of an IOU, or a deferred payment obligation (DPO), meaning the lender/investor will not immediately be able recover the full amount of its claim.
http://www.housingwire.com/2009/04/02/mortgage-insurance-woes-grow-for-fannie-freddie/
"If this administration has talent for anything, it's for saying one thing and then contradicting it with another."
You make some extremely good points, but this resonated with me most clearly. I've called it the return of Slick Willy in a couple of the stories I've written. I get it from Obama somewhat but mostly from Geithner. He is a master wordsmith/liar.
The salon article from Glenn Greenwald is outstanding and discusess this point of yours.
This snip from the Greenwald piece is especially troubling.
If that isn't illegal, it is as close to it as one can get. And it is a blatant attempt by the White House to brush aside -- circumvent and violate -- the spirit if not the letter of Congressional restrictions on executive pay for TARP-receiving firms. It was Obama, in the wake of various scandals over profligate spending by TARP firms, who pretended to ride the wave of populist anger and to lead the way in demanding limits on compensation. And ever since his flamboyant announcement, Obama -- adopting the same approach that seems to drive him in most other areas -- has taken one step after the next to gut and render irrelevant the very compensation limits he publicly pretended to champion (thereafter dishonestly blaming Chris Dodd for doing so and virtually destroying Dodd's political career). And the winners -- as always -- are the same Wall St. firms that caused the crisis in the first place while enriching and otherwise co-opting the very individuals Obama chose to be his top financial officials.
Worse still, what is happening here is an exact analog to what is happening in the realm of Bush war crimes -- the Obama administration's first priority is to protect the wrongdoers and criminals by ensuring that the criminality remains secret. Here is how Black explained it last night:
Send me a copy of your letter to the editor and I'll publish it as a journal entry.
Holy crap that Glenn Greenwald Salon piece was a good find! Please keep them coming. I agree, it should be required reading - for everyone. Does anyone here have a contact at NPR? Maybe they can read a few bits for some juicy soundbyites on All Things Considered Monday.