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In the latest sign of the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington, ‘double agent’- recently retired U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is returning home — to the corporate law firm, Covington & Burling, where he worked for eight years before becoming head of the Justice Department.
He pioneered what became to be known as extrajudicial
settlements," – closed door agreements which were not subject to judicial
review. All of the bankers escaped punishment and instead fines were levied for
their criminal conduct, fines that will borne by the shareholders. The Holder
Memo outlined a policy of minimizing "collateral consequences,"
–noncriminal remedies which offered an escape hatch to white collar criminal
bankers. Perhaps the largest criminal banking enterprise was HSBC
which laundered money for drug dealers—that only had to pony up a big
fine instead of donning on orange jump suits and ankle chains. HSBC admitted
laundering $880 million for a pair of Central and South American drug cartels,
including the Sinaloa drug cartel, which is infamous all over the world for
releasing torture videos of its victims.
Holder failed to criminally prosecute other Covington
clients, for their role in the financial crisis, including Bank of America,
JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup for which he is now being richly
rewarded with a very lucrative Covington partnership.
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