They got away scott free because they had the numbers.
Having all the numbers in the S&L collapse made them untouchable, because congress (all of congress not just Keating’s five) could not afford to have the total picture painted to the public in easy to understand irrefutable mathematics.
As long as the math was vague and only hypothetical congress could slough the blame for the collapse on the many crooks who were embezzling over a billion in aggregate from the S&L entities.
But if real numbers were made public the public would see how tiny that number was compared to the loss from retroactive changes to the tax code. Not only would many Congressmen and Senators been tossed out, impediments to future retroactive legislation would have been likely, perhaps even a constitutional ammendment.
That both parties are irredeemably corrupt is not a recent development.
Absolutely agree with you. The Republicans were culpable largely from the push to “deregulate” the investments and interest operations of the S&L industry, in the free-market faith that those businessmen would make good decisions, because it was in their self-interest to do so.
Those Republicans completely missed the fact that when S&Ls go bankrupt, the managers lose nothing, only the taxpayers, and all the moreso when the managers have been looting the institution for years by using its assets to back deals the same managers were running under different corporate headings. Any time you want to use the public treasury to guarantee liabilities in the public sector you have to either regulate the assets against those liabilities very tightly, or get ready to have that system blow up. Over and over again.
George H.W. Bush was President when Keating was brought to trial. He and his attorney general made the decision not to try the Keating five. Not unlike Holder and Obama choosing not to try Jon Corzine for stealing billions in the MF Global affair. Neither the G.W. Bush or the Obama Justice Departments have gone after Goldman Sachs and other big Wall Street Banks for the insider trading and other corruption associated with the 2008 financial meltdown.
Finally, George Soros has not been prosecuted by administrations of either party. I find it fascinating the Democrats are in full attack mode on the Koch brothers while the Republicans remain silent on Soros.