Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone on Tuesday night blasted the Department of Justice for not prosecuting Goldman Sachs or any of its employees despite a nearly year-long fraud investigation.
“They haven’t done a single thing, I mean that’s what’s so incredible about it,” he told Current TV host Eliot Spitzer. “It would be one thing if they decided, ‘Let’s put all our chips in one pile and go after one big fish and we’ll make that our signature case,’ but they didn’t do that, they didn’t pick anybody. Their answer was ‘None of the above,’ which is an incredible conclusion for them to draw.”
A 2011 report led by Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) found that Goldman Sachs had misled investors and was betting heavily against their own clients. Levin also accused the financial firm of misleading Congress and helping to create the financial crisis.
While the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a civil complaint against Goldman vice president Fabrice Tourre, the Department of Justice has declined to prosecute anyone at the firm. The Justice Department said there was not enough evidence that Goldman Sachs broke the law.
“I think a prosecutor’s primary job is to be a fighter. I mean, he has to be pugnacious, he has to feel like, ‘I’m going to do whatever it takes to get these guys if they’ve done something wrong,’ and these guys are exactly the opposite of that,” Taibbi added. “They’re kind like Tom Cruise in the first half of ‘A Few Good Men,’ you know, they’re just making deals and playing softball – they don’t want to go to trial.”
(Source: Current TV and RawStory.com)
