Posted on 12/10/2011 9:46:04 AM PST by Para-Ord.45
“I simply do not know where the money is, or why the accounts have not been reconciled to date.” Let’s translate that Jon Corzine quote into Latin, engrave it in stone, and make it the official motto of Congress. Anybody remember that this Wall Street Democrat used to sit on the Senate committees on banking and the budget?
Question: Why should we believe that the motives of people in (cough, cough) “public service” are different from the motives of people in the for-profit sector? Was Jon Corzine a rapacious self-seeker at Goldman Sachs, then a public-spirited man when he was in the Senate and in New Jersey’s governorship, only to revert to form when he went to MF Global? If you doubt that this is true, and suspect that Jon Corzine was the same guy all along, why would you want to give government more power?
Political ties win Corzine respect in Congress
At Thursday's hearing, lawmakers thanked Corzine - whose name placard read "Honorable" - for not invoking his right to avoid self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
He got gentler treatment than his former Goldman Sachs colleague, Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler, who has been skewered by lawmakers for stepping aside from a probe into MF Global.
Corzine has been a major fundraiser for President Barack Obama, having donated the maximum of $5,000 that an individual can give for a presidential campaign, according to campaign finance records.
He also held a lavish $35,800-a-head fundraising dinner for Obama at his home in April and raised or "bundled" donations of at least $500,000 so far for Obama's 2012 re-election effort.
He personally donated $69,300 to Democratic causes this year alone, including $15,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
http://news.yahoo.com/political-ties-win-corzine-respect-congress-232645624.html
Any of ‘us’ would be headed to the joint. This guy will skate.
This comes from a co-sponsor of Sarbanes-Oxley Act 2002 /aka/ Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act.
Key Provisions:
4.1 Sarbanes–Oxley Section 302: Disclosure controls
4.2 Sarbanes–Oxley Section 303: Improper Influence on Conduct of Audits
4.3 Sarbanes-Oxley Section 401: Disclosures in periodic reports (Off-balance sheet items)
4.4 Sarbanes–Oxley Section 404: Assessment of internal control
4.5 Sarbanes–Oxley 404 and smaller public companies
4.6 Sarbanes–Oxley Section 802: Criminal penalties for influencing US Agency investigation/proper administration
4.7 Sarbanes–Oxley Section 906: Criminal Penalties for CEO/CFO financial statement certification
4.8 Sarbanes–Oxley Section 1107: Criminal penalties for retaliation against whistleblowers
And Corzine doesn’t know what happened. The amount missing corresponds to Obama’s Election War Chest. Is that a clue?
It’s not often that someone goes before Congress and willingly admits to a violation of the law without accepting immunity of some kind. His statement is a blatant admission of a violation of Sarbanes-Oxley. He should have been arrested on the spot and taken to arraignment. Not only will he not serve a day in prison, he will never be arraigned or formally accused of anything. If he’s so clueless about one BILLION dollars of his firm’s money, exactly what did he do as CEO to “earn” his money? I think we all know the answer to that. The time for attempts at peaceful change is coming to an end.
Corzine sounds like his kindred friend in the WH, Obama, who seems to forget about his role in a bad economy etc. Corzine and accomplices can probably skate on any corruption or criminal charges because Obama and Holder won’t prosecute a fellow Obamanista, now or ever. Say goodbye to the 1.3 billion or so of missing $$$$$?
If congress will accept this answer will the IRS?
Agreed. This guy MUST get jail time as well as the corrupt pols that have not been enforcing the law. I spent a year testing the software changes brought about by Sarbanes-Oxley legislation. The tools are there!
NRO nailed it.
Corzine is STILL viewed as “ Honorable “ by Congress but how can a person be virtuous and pristine when a Senator , Governor or politician and when in the private sector be a cad, criminal and incompetent !?
The very root of the reason why the Founders created a small government and a Constitutional Republic. They knew the inherent evil of men and designed a govt. least susceptible to corruption until the progressive/statist/marxists shredded it.
sarc/
At a dime a dozen he can afford quite a few with his stash of 1.2 bil.
I simply do not know why his ass is not in jail.
Put him in a locked room with a dozen of the investors. I bet they can make him remember where the loot is.
Seriously, he will walk. I see that as a proof that I should be absolutely sure to report all my income and pay every penny of tax that I even might owe.
Maddoff called Corzine the other day and asked, “How did you do it Jon?” Corzine responded, “I don’t know.” Maddoff, “Brilliant!”
Here is what liberals had to say about the same defense for Ken Lay when he used it:
What responsibility does he take, as chief executive officer, for the failure of Enron?
“I have to take responsibility for anything that happened within its businesses,” says Lay. “But I can’t take responsibility for criminal conduct of somebody inside the company.”
“This is what I call the Elmer Fudd defense — that I went to work every day and was paid $6 million a year and had a Ph.D. in economics — and somehow, despite all of this, I didn’t know anything that was going on. It’s laughable,” says Bill Lerach, a lawyer who sued to stop document shredding by Enron’s accountants. Now, he’s leading an investor lawsuit against the company, its bankers, its accountants and Lay.
“What was he doing every day in his office? Reading comic books? This man was the CEO of the company,” says Lerach. “He had an obligation to be informed about what was going on in that business every day in every way. And he utterly failed to do it.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/11/60minutes/main679706.shtml
And who was Lerach?
A former big time class action attorney, with close ties and a big donor to the Democrat Party, now a disbarred attorney who pled guilty to one felony count of conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice and making false declarations under oath in a case relating to a kickback scheme involving class-action lawsuits against some of corporate America’s biggest names.
In other words, a typical, lying scumbag rat....
Still waiting for now going on 4 years to see some of these banksters doing a perp walk at Rikers Island for starters. It’s not because they are very rich, but because they are thieves and have used their connections and influence to skate by just as Corzine will. If they are not prosecuted we must lose confidence in the financial system because it is dirty and corrupt and there is no incentive for change.
The Dept of Justice gave Angelo Mozilo the CEO of Countrywide a prosecution pass even though he was considered as a poster boy for mortgage fraud and the sweetheart FNM deals. He was only fined and did not admit guilt or wrongdoing. http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-09-07/wall_street/30127572_1_countrywide-financial-corp-countrywide-ceo-angelo-mozilo-boa
Basically the DOJ is afraid to criminally prosecute even one because that testimony will lead to others (including politicians), and that could bring the entire house of cards of this DC-Wall Street cabal down. That’s why these prosecutions end up going no where.
the dog ate it???
I’m not one to give a hoot which Party they were from. I vote for capital punishment when big bucks are stolen even if they wear $100 ties. It is the same as taking lives as actuarials regularly measure life in terms of dollars.
Ken Lay was one of the first canaries in the coal mine indicators that the market and corporate / accounting reports were smoke and mirrors. He stole money from me as a shareholder and that instilled my first distrust of the financial markets. The only thing I invest in Wall Street now is gambling money. It’s a casino not an investment. The perception of financial markets is eventually going to catch up with the reality. Nothing is as it seems.
“Is” is present tense.
He must be asked what he knows about HOW IT GOT OUT!
He knows the mechanisms and the processes.
Pretending he doesn’t know which account or pocket it currently resides in, is a guilty child’s transparent lie.
I was just comparing Ken Lay’s Elmer Fudd defense with Corzine’s, and the seemingly double standard....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.