Today’s headlines that Jon Corzine gave “direct instructions” for MF Global customer money to be moved to another account to cover a $175 million overdraft raises big questions about how this case is being handled. Congressional Committee’s are imperfect investigative vehicles, but this time the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation has really scored. By digging out and making public an email from MF Global assistant treasurer Edith O’Brien, the Committee has done a huge public service.
But surely the investigation of the disappearance of $1.6 billion deserves a more formal process than “trial by headline.” Just where is the Justice Department in all this? We do not know, but we do know that Attorney General Eric Holder has been the protector of corrupt Democratic politicians in Congress. Rep. Charles Rangel admitted to not paying his taxes, and admitted to leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars in income and assets off his financial disclosure forms. These are crimes, yet there has been no criminal prosecution.
Likewise, former Rep. Alan Mollohan admitted to omitting millions of dollars in assets from his forms, yet the Justice Department simply closed a four-year-old investigation without comment shortly after Mollohan voted for ObamaCare.
Eric Holder has been the most political Attorney General in history, and that is saying a lot, given the fact that Robert F. Kennedy was the President’s brother. Whatever punches RFK pulled for his brother, at least he had the courage to go after organized crime. Holder can point to no initiative or action as Attorney General that has taken him out of his comfort zone as career political hack. He is morally capable of slowing or subverting a criminal prosecution of Corzine.
Whether Corzine gave “direct instructions” or not to grab customer money would seem to be a key point in future criminal prosecutions. But even if he did not, MF Global was headed for a fall, as clearly explained by NLPC Associate Fellow Fred N. Sauer on December 21, 2011 in his piece titled The MF Global Collapse Explained (And Why It Should Be a Crime).