Yesterday, the US Justice Department released a statement saying they would extinguish their financial fraud probe into Goldman Sachs because “the burden of proof to bring a criminal case could not be met.” So we have this news, despite the fact that a Senate subcommittee in April 2011 uncovered that Goldman had marketed complex mortgage securities to other banks and investors but had ‘neglected’ to tell their clients about the high-risk these securities posed. Anticipating such lunacy, Matt Taibbi wrote back in May:
It’s by now been well-established that the S.E.C.’s performance in policing Wall Street before, after, and during the crash has been comically inept. It would be putting it generously to say that the top cop on the financial services beat has demonstrated particular incompetence with regard to investigations of high-profile targets at powerhouse banks and financial companies. A less generous interpretation would be that the agency is simply too afraid, too unwilling, or too corrupt to take on the really dangerous animals in this particular jungle.
Too true, unfortunately.
