Zero Prosecutions of Elite Banksters Is Too Many Prosecutions for the Wall Street Journal
Unintentional self-parody was the result to a coordinated effort by the systemically dangerous institutions' (SDIs) press flacks to gin up outrage that the Department of Justice (DOJ) would have the audacity to sue the SDIs' for their manifold violations of the law. The Wall Street Journal recalled one of its former opinion page pundits to active duty as a shill for the Street. George Melloan's August 25 column warned:
"If dubious prosecutions continue to mount, they could backfire on the regulatory agencies and further diminish sinking public confidence in government. Ask the folks at the IRS."
Given the fact that there are zero prosecutions of any of the elite bankers whose frauds drove the crisis, the phrase "if dubious prosecutions continue to mount" is surreal. Melloan's IRS reference is a threat aimed at the banking regulators. If they ever emerge from their torpor and begin make criminal referrals and demand that DOJ prosecute the banksters Melloan is threatening to reprise the kneecapping that that Republicans members of Congress inflicted on the IRS at Senate hearings in 1997. Senator Roth (R. Del.) staged the hearing quite brilliantly as a series of alleged "horror stories" often told by alleged IRS "whistleblowers"
Leandra Lederman, a very conservative scholar, wrote a law review article that quoted the Republican leadership's apocalyptic description of the hearing and the IRS.
in full: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-k-black/zero-prosecutions-of-elit_b_3836564.html