Uncoverage
8/17/2011
We reported the story yesterday that shameless SEC Chief Mary Schapiro is allowing her agency to be the “useful tool” of retribution of the Chicago-Mafioso-in-Chief, as he seeks to punish S&P for the credit downgrade by alleging “insider trading.”
That predatory witch hunt is a “deflection” of what is REALLY going on: If Sen. Grassley is right, Mary Schapiro belongs in jail for a long, long time.
Grassley Asks SEC to Account for Serious Allegations of Case-related Document Destruction
WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa today asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to account for serious allegations that case-related document destruction might have compromised enforcement in cases involving suspicious activity at major banks and hedge funds.
“From what I’ve seen, it looks as if the SEC might have sanctioned some level of case-related document destruction,” Grassley said. “It doesn’t make sense that an agency responsible for investigations would want to get rid of potential evidence. If these charges are true, the agency needs to explain why it destroyed documents, how many documents it destroyed over what timeframe, and to what extent its actions were consistent with the law.”
Grassley’s inquiry to the SEC came after an agency whistleblower sent a letter to Grassley describing “the SEC’s unlawful destruction of the federal records generated in at least 9,000 informal investigations.” The documents are said to support “matters under inquiry,” which is the first step in investigating a case that may or may not lead to a formal investigation. After reviewing the whistleblower’s letter and supporting documents, Grassley sent a letter to the SEC, asking for a full accounting of any document destruction policies, including whether the allegations are correct that the SEC destroyed documents related to Bernard Madoff, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Lehman Brothers, and SAC Capital…
The article continues at Undercoverage.
H/T Tancredo Radio Show:
Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge: “As a reminder, Grassley is after Stevie Cohen. If Mary Schapiro indeed willingly destroyed docs that exposed SAC as a criminal organization, she is going to prison. And if indeed this is true, in the aftermath of Madoff, that is where she belongs.”
Billionaire Steve Cohen of SAC Capitol is still living the life.
Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone says the SEC has engaged in an “Orwellian” cover-up:
“For the past two decades, according to a whistle-blower at the SEC who recently came forward to Congress, the agency has been systematically destroying records of its preliminary investigations once they are closed. By whitewashing the files of some of the nation’s worst financial criminals, the SEC has kept an entire generation of federal investigators in the dark about past inquiries into insider trading, fraud and market manipulation against companies like Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and AIG. With a few strokes of the keyboard, the evidence gathered during thousands of investigations – $8,000 … including Madoff,” as one high-ranking SEC official put it during a panicked meeting about the destruction – have apparently disappeared forever into the wormhole of history.” Read the whole story: Rolling Stone
Flashback: Grassley investigation into 33 SEC employees who were surfing and downloading porn as much as 8 hours a day. Some employees punished, it’s not clear if any were fired.
CAJ note: Here is our list of SEC-related articles.
Related: Report: Obama Justice Dept. Investigating Standard & Poor’s
