The declines in US Federal prosecutions for financial fraud that began under G.W. Bush have followed that down trend that in the first three years of the Obama Administration. That might make more sense if Obama had not been elected as a reform president in response to one of the greatest financial frauds in American history.
In the first three years of the Obama Administration, federal prosecutions have been running at new highs. Over half of the prosecutions involve illegal immigration. Another 17% are drug related. Illegal immigrants and drug dealers have the reputation for being notoriously cheap in providing campaign contributions. Prosecutions for financial fraud however have dropped to the lowest levels in over 20 years. According to the original study, the primary charges for Federal crimes in the latest figures are as follows.
"The single largest number of prosecutions of these matters through August 2011 was for Immigration, accounting for 50.7 percent of prosecutions. The second largest number of matters were Prosecutions filed under the program area of Narcotics/Drugs (17.3%)."
In defense of Obama, GW Bush had the unearned benefit of Eliot Spitzer leading the charge for the Feds on financial fraud from his office as the Democratic NY Attorney General. Of course Eliot got taken out by the Feds himself in 2008 as the result of an intensive ad hoc investigation into $5,000-a-night hookers from New Jersey named Ashley. I wonder what category that falls under. She should have waited for the reality show - it has better residuals. Don't get me wrong. I am not trying to pick on BHO. I am disappointed with his performance to say the least, and that set in around day 50 when he unrolled his appointments, so you can't blame it all on the obviously obstructionist opposition. The people voted for Franklin Roosevelt and they got a Herbert Hoover. Whenever you might say, "I don't really like Obama's ineffectiveness as a reformer" or "Although he seems decent and has many effective postions, I am uncomfortable with Ron Paul because of his ideological opposition to civil rights legislation and equal protection laws" at some point you usually hear: "Well who do YOU like?" Life imitates high school. I don' t like any of them, or should I say like like? And a few are borderline frightening. And most people seem to feel the same way. I cannot believe that in the world's superpower, with about 300 million residents, this motley collection has risen as the cream of the crop.
NY Times Prosecutions for Bank Fraud Fall Sharply By CATHERINE RAMPELL Federal prosecutions for financial institution fraud have tumbled over the last decade, despite the recent troubles in the banking sector, according to a new analysis of Justice Department data by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University. This category can refer to crimes committed both within and against banks. Defendants include bank executives who mislead regulators, mortgage brokers who falsify loan documents, and consumers who write bad checks. During the first 11 months of the 2011 fiscal year, the federal government filed 1,251 new prosecutions for financial institution fraud. If that pace continues, TRAC projects a total of 1,365 prosecutions for the fiscal year. That’s less than half the total a decade ago. The decline in these new cases stands in contrast to the government’s broader approach to federal criminal prosecutions. Federal prosecutions for other crimes have grown tremendously, with the number of total new prosecutions filed for all federal crimes nearly doubling over the last decade. Read the rest of the NY Times article here.
