I’m losing faith in our democracy to fix itself. In the Top vs the Rest of Us, we can not seem to win. Where there is stench, there is…

Excerpt from the Martens latest on the 1 year coverup:

On August 11, the Attorney General of the U.S. Department of Justice, Merrick Garland, told the American people at a press conference that: “Faithful adherence to the rule of law is the bedrock principle of the Justice Department and of our democracy. Upholding the rule of law means applying the rule of law evenly, without fear or favor.”

That was certainly not true of Eric Holder’s Justice Department under President Obama, nor was it true of William Barr’s Justice Department under President Trump. In fact, just the opposite was true. Under Holder, the Justice Department functioned as a coverup and white-washing mechanism for a crime syndicate of powerful players on Wall Street. (See here and here.) Under Barr, the Justice Department took a machete to the rule of law and sculpted an art form out of doling out favorable treatment to criminal actors.

Today, despite Merrick Garland’s lofty words about operating without fear or favor, there is a strong stench surrounding the lack of action by the Justice Department against former Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan — a former Vice Chair of Goldman Sachs.

This Wednesday marks the one-year anniversary of Wall Street Journal reporter Mike Derby setting off a five-alarm media fire with his reporting that Kaplan had “made multiple million-dollar-plus stock trades in 2020,” a year when Kaplan had inside information on the unprecedented actions the Fed was taking to support Wall Street and the U.S. economy during the pandemic as a voting member of the Fed’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).

To make a long story short. After overwhelming evidence was obtained of wrong doing, nothing was done, no body wants to talk about it, minimal changes were made. Seems to happen a lot like after the 2008 financial crisis, and maybe today.

BTW, Kaplan worked for 21 years at Goldman Sachs before getting this gig.

Read the whole story here: Former Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan’s Trading Scandal and the Merrick Garland Justice Department’s One Year of Silence the Martens

Categories: Perspectives