He was on the Appeals Council of the Social Security administration. He worked in kansas city and was promoted to the Appeals Council out there in washington. I stayed here until i went to college. When did you get interested in criminal justice . Good question. I think all many, if not all are drawn to the criminal justice section of the law. It is sort of cops and robbers. You want the good guy to prevail. By the time i was in law school, i was very interested in criminal Justice System. You went to law school where . Columbia, 1970 until 1974. By the time you went to columbia, who were the biggest influences on your life . Where did it come from . I think this is something all Young Lawyers need to be aware of a little bit. If youre in law school and you do well, a lot of folks in that category are expected to clerk for a federal judge. Wonderful job. I did that. I went to a very Strong Law Firm in the private sector. I did that. But i guess my exposure really was as a law clerk. I was in manhattan, a federal judge. I saw the u. S. Attorneys Office Operating in the courtroom. I never got it out my head i would very much like to do that. After a couple years in the law firm, i applied in the late 1970s, early 1980s. I thought i had died and gone to heaven. It was a wonderful job. Its a lot of responsibility for a young lawyer. Essentially your client is your conscience. You are there to do what you think is right. Its a pretty satisfying job to have. In terms of who influenced me, my supervisors in the u. S. Attorneys office. A little later on when i went back into the government, i worked for andy maloney, who was the u. S. Attorney in the Eastern District. I had been a partner in a Major Law Firm by then. I would point to him as the only person i would call a mentor in my career. Can you remember the first time you knew the name john gotti . Before i went back into the government, john gotti had been tried and not successfully prosecuted. Before i went to the Eastern District as mr. Maloneys chief assistant. When i was there, i was very actively involved in really supervising the gotti prosecution which ultimately led to his conviction. How many times was he tried . Three times. He was acquitted twice. The third time he was convicted. Were you in the courtroom . I was in the courtroom a lot of the time, but i was not part of the trial team. I was involved in a lot of the strategy calls. Mr. Maloney was in the trial himself along with mr. Gleason. Ironically when i became the u. S. Attorney of the Southern District a couple years later, we prosecuted john gottis son, john a. Gotti, also known as junior. Was he convicted . He pled guilty, yes. So with the former head of the gambino family, cosa nostra, whatever label you want to put on it, did you ever fear for your own life . I did not fear for my own life. You have to be prudent about your security risks as a prosecutor. I think everybody realizes this. There are a lot of rules in the organized crime spaces and arenas and one is not to draw attention to yourself by harming a prosecutor or a judge. That is not true with other criminal groups. Some of the violent drug gangs, for example, i think are a bigger security threat. When i became u. S. Attorney in manhattan, by really happenstance, the trade center just before i became u. S. Attorney, so we did a lot of Major International terrorism cases and there is security from those cases. John gotti did what . He was convicted of racketeering. He basically extorted money from people for protection payments. He was the boss of the family. Multiple murders were carried out with his, him being responsible for those as well. It is really a soup to nuts crime wave. I remember seeing a u. S. Attorney stand in front of microphone and all that, but what is behind that . In order to get someone convicted like john gotti i guess he has been dead for years what is there that we dont see . An extraordinary amount of work that you dont see. Not even exciting work. It is not like you would run on a tv show or something. It is painstakingly going through records to show him as going from here to there. A huge break in that case was that sammy the bull gravano, the right hand of gotti, became a government witness in the middle of the trial. Deciding whether to use him as a cooperating witness. Again, he is someone with his own serious crime record. Including murders. Do you use someone like that as a witness that you in effect vouch for as prosecutor to the jury . What you do not see out in the public, in front of the camera is all of the agonizing you go through to make a decision like that, preparing him to testify, making certain he is telling the truth when he takes that stand. Did you help prepare them to testify . I was involved in that process. What was he like up close . Very bright, extremely bright. He had lived a life of crime. That came through talking to him, too. You mentioned the terrorist attack. This is mayor deakins. You will probably remember this. The terrorists most potent weapon is not a bomb. It is fear. It is that that we, the public officials, must do our utmost to combat. With the announcement of the earlier arrest of those alleged to have bombed the World Trade Center, we have taken a significant step in depriving these terrorists of their anonymity and their most cherished weapon, fear. We have begun to reveal the face of our attacker. Terrorism is a destructive, insidious, and cowardly enterprise. By its very nature it can cause fear and alter and destroy our civic life, if we permit it. That was 21 years ago. What do you remember when the World Trade Center was bombed in 1993 . Obviously we were taken aback. We learned more and more every day. It took a while again, years before we knew what the nature of that threat was to be that bombing. Shortly thereafter i was appointed to be the u. S. Attorney in manhattan and became responsible for the prosecution of the case and was very actively involved in that case, as well as four or five other Major International terrorism cases. Again, the public was not aware of this at the time what was happening pretty contemporaneously with the trade Center Bombing was an ongoing plot to blow up the bridges and tunnels connecting new jersey and new york. The notion being within a single 24hour period, they could blow up these tunnels. Also blowing up the u. N. Also blowing up the fbi building in manhattan. That fell to me as i went from manhattan to brooklyn to supervise. Deciding when to take down that case. What i mean by that every day there are more and more people involved in that plot. You obviously want to build the evidence to have a successful prosecution. You want to bring as many involved into that net as you can, but you never want to err on the side of is this going to get away from us and theres going to actually be a bombing . One of the things i did was immerse myself in that case and participate in that decision, when to take that case down, when to make the arrests . Do you remember when you did that . Absolutely. Youre balancing, getting the evidence you need to prosecute, but never take a chance. So that is really what you are balancing. It is 24 7 agonizing time, no question about it. Somewhere in colorado is a man named ramzi yousef. What you know about him . Ramzi yousef was one of the masterminds of the trade Center Bombings. He was a major participant in what was called the air manila plot which came along somewhat later, basically a plot to blow up a number of number of jumbo jets from asia to the United States. Again killing thousands of people was the aim within 48 hours. He was a fugitive. He fled the day of the World Trade Center bombing. He was a fugitive for about two years, i guess. I was very much involved. He was identified by happenstance. It is good to be lucky sometimes. There was a fire in the apartment in manila where he and his cohorts were trying to carry out this airplane bombing plot. The police came, he fled. Shortly thereafter he was captured in pakistan. He was returned to new york for prosecution for both the trade Center Bombing and that air manila plot. I was in fbi headquarters when he was flown back to stand trial. Very dangerous, very brilliant, very scary person and terrorist. He said he hated us and hated israel. Why . The baseline ideology was to topple any government that did not follow the tenets of really the terrorist organization. And the goal for the west was to destroy the west, to destroy our government. And to do it by killing innocent civilians. He represented himself in the manila air plot prosecution. He was convicted of that. In a courtroom . In a courtroom. In new york . In new york. He had the constitutional right to do that, by and large, if you are a criminal defendant. He announced it very late into the prosecution. Two or three days before the case opened. The judge allowed him to go pro se. I remember when that was announced to the jury. You could see the stiffening there. They took note of that. He was basically standing within a foot and a half of the jury box the whole time. One of the most frightening things about watching him english is not his first language, not a lawyer. He was at least as good and i would say without insulting anyone else as a lawyer in the case at least as good as the professional lawyers that represented the other defendants, and probably better. Frighteningly intelligent. Frighteningly quick study. His uncle is Khalid Sheikh mohammed . Yes. I think that has been confirmed. When you read this, the 1994 defendants for the World Trade Center bombing. The 1995 trial of 12 defendants for the day of terror plot is that the tunnels . Exactly. 1996. You are the u. S. Attorney at this time. 1996 trial of the three defendants for the air manila plot. Ramzi yousef and the driver of the ryder van for the World Trade Center bombing. You knew all this. What was it like on september 11 . You knew all these people. 9 11 and one of the other major trials after that, the bombing of our embassy in west africa. We essentially indicted Osama Bin Laden twice. He was among our defendants. He obviously remained a fugitive. I was still u. S. Attorney on 9 11. In my office obviously a day no one forgets. A horrific day. Those of us who knew the most, and we ended up knowing a lot in our office, just by virtue of these cases. I made sure we continue to investigate, follow the lead so we could share that information with parts of our government. I think none of us would be surprised and indeed expected another attempt on the trade center. He said his goal was to topple the towers into each other. But he said, i didnt have enough money to build a big enough bomb. Certainly the expectation was there would likely be another attack, but not of this dimension. Was there a moment when he was representing himself that you thought he was winning . No. No. Why is that . I have a lot of faith in juries. We had the day of terror trial, which the blind sheikh was the leader of. It was a ninemonth trial. This is the bridges in the tunnel trial. 12 defendants, as you mentioned. The oj Simpson Trial paralleled it exactly in time. And there were contrast, i think, in terms of the trial when they were being taken in. I think new york juries, and i do not need to confine it to only new york juries, they are very bright, conscientious, savvy. They become fearless in a situation like that. And then the proof was strong. The proof was strong. One interesting sidebar was the oj Simpson Trial was televised and the yousef ramzi trial was not. What you think of that . Should it have been televised . I am not a proponent of cameras in the courtroom because i think they affect behaviors witnesses in ways, even jurors in ways in ways that are not constructive at all times. That is a hard question. You say you want sunshine shone on these trials. I think it was a shame it was not shown on television for two reasons in this particular case. Both, if you listened and followed it, it was a very scary story of what was happening. Basically a war that had been declared on the United States by a terrorist organization, very dangerous terrorists on trial. And i think judge mccasey, his control over the courtroom, the dignity of that proceeding went forward. It is something you want the American People to see. Back to the manila fire, if that fire in his apartment hadnt happened, do you think those people would have been killed . Was he that good . Very high likelihood that wouldve occurred. The plot was far along. They had done a test run on a flight that had a layover. Was this manila to japan . Exactly. They planted it under the seat of a japanese passenger. It went off midair. Killed the japanese passenger. That was the test run. Within weeks of carrying out the broader plot. I certainly think there was a high likelihood it wouldve been successful. He got off the plane. He did. He essentially carried on the ingredients he needed, was able to assemble the bomb in the lavatory, in the airplane bathroom. Seat 26k. I dont know why i have remembered that, but i have. He got off. He was off the plane, but the bomb went off. When you get on a plane, do you think of that . I dont think of that. But what i do think of is how much more enhanced our Airport Security is, but there are holes in it. I do think about that. I do not specifically think about that plot. Here you are in 1996 with bill clinton. Mr. President , thank you, in particular for your leadership and unswerving commitment to have a comprehensive, tough, but fair antiterrorism bill enacted now when it is so badly needed. It is my distinct honor and privilege to introduce the president of the United States. Mr. President , every american is safer today because of you. On behalf of all Law Enforcement and all americans, we thank you. [applause] this is a serious subject, but excuse me for asking this question. You are about five feet tall. I am exactly five feet tall. You have a little thing you were standing on. The reason i ask is this earlier you referred to someone called you attila the hun. What does it mean being five feet tall in this world that you live in . I thought about this even recently. It has taken me a long time to realize im short. The only time i realize im short is if someone is 67 or 68. I am looking up at an angle. It has never impacted me, other than the inconvenience of being able to reach certain things. I dont think it has had an influence at all. So you are not conscious of being around all of these taller people and being tougher because of that . I am not. There was a profile written recently about me where there was a bit of emphasis on my height. I asked my colleagues what they thought of it, and gee, i never noticed that i was short until i read that. It is not something that is on my consciousness. It never has been. Here is what you said in his speech september 27, 2000. This is one year before 9 11. You said the entire u. S. Information, financial, and Communications Infrastructure is at risk for terrorist attacks. Why did you i assume it seems obvious but why did you feel this strongly . This was before 9 11. You went through the use of trials and all that stuff. Did anybody listen to you . There were a number of people in the government listening, more over time. What happened to me essentially was again, is guarded by happenstance, the tragedy of the trade Center Bombing in 1993. And i was also involved with this plot to blow up the bridges in the tunnels. A lot of information came to us as a result of those trials to convince me that this threat was here to stay. We were at risk inside the United States, outside the United States. What i did was form the first Terrorism Unit in any u. S. Attorneys office. I think it was the only one formed before 9 11, period, with the goal of lets not lose what we have learned here. Lets not lose what we have learned. We believe were under a significant longterm threat. Lets keep following these leads. I hoped i would never have another case. I was not seeking prosecution. Over time more and more people although not all people appreciated the gravity of the threat. In that same speech you mention Osama Bin Laden. Yes. He came on our radar screen i think for the first time, again, its always a learning experience. Youre dealing with bits of information. Today we look back on it. Oh, gee, Osama Bin Laden, you knew about him. I think 1996 was when we first even heard of him. A small transfer of money to one of the participants in the manila plot, the trade Center Bombing. Not much known about him at that time. You try to focus on everybody who emerged. You knew that there was involvement in the terrorist organization. You did not know how significant. We did not indict him for the first time, twice in 1998, once for conspiring against u. S. Interests abroad. Unfortunately, he was never captured. We indicted him later that same year for the bombing of the east african embassies. We still learned something every day. Cia and the fbi eventually formed what is known as station alec, i think it was called, just focused on bin laden. But i dont think that happened until probably about 1997 i may be off a year or two. Why do you think 9 11 happened and we did not catch it . I think colin powell said it was a failure of imagination in some ways. Everybody expected more efforts, but not the way it occurred. Why were we attacked . We are to this day the great satan to al qaeda and associated terrorist groups. With the goal of destroying us in using whatever means possible to do that, including, i would say at times, especially by means of the savage murder of innocent civilians. Ramzi yousefs uncle Khalid Sheikh mohammed, supposedly the man who planned 9 11, went to school in North Carolina for four years. What is it they hate so much about us . Our way of life, our religion, runs counter to their ill say religious beliefs. I think one of the tragedies of all of this in some ways islam is obviously a very renowned religion of the world. These terrorists defiled that in some peoples minds. Big mistake. They have their own brand of what they call a religion which is basically to destroy the rest of the world that does not agree with them and we are at the top of that list. Why did you choose to leave the u. S. Attorneys office and go back to private practice . It is a president ial appointment subject to confirmation by the senate. So, i actually served both of those on president clintons terms. He was the president who appointed me. It is traditional when the president , when the president s party changes, that u. S. Attorneys are changed. I was asked to stay on another year in the bush administration. And i did. Primarily because i was in the middle of these terrorist cases. We were actually in the middle of trying the east african cases. It was a normal course that i would make a change then. It is not a job for life. It is a great job, but not a job for life. Were you ever interrupted for political reasons as u. S. Attorney . The answer is no. Essentially all u. S. Attorneys are political appointees, but they are among the most independent Government Service you will see anywhere. I happened to preside over it be Southern District of new york, which is older than the Justice Department here in washington, known not so fondly as the sovereign district of new york, and fiercely protects our independence from all politics and influences and i think successfully. What is your position on the Death Penalty, and why did more of these men convicted not get it . It did not apply in some of the earlier cases. Did apply on the later cases. We did seek the Death Penalty on two of the defendants in the east africa cases. Clearly that is one of the hardest issues to grapple with. I recommended and the attorney general had to approve seeking the Death Penalty in these bomb cases. I thought the horrific mess up the crime certainly compelled seeking the Death Penalty in a case, i thought. There are a lot of flip side arguments. You make martyrs of the defendants. I think reflecting on the Death Penalty if there is ever a miscarriage if anyone is convicted of the Death Penalty, there could not be a worse miscarriage in our system. We have to be very vigilant if someone raises dna evidence that indicates the system failed us. You cannot fix that, you know, after the fact. You need to fix it before that is levied. And really the resources in that case, reflecting back on it, many more motions are made, several counsel were appointed as they should be, given what the stakes are. Im not sure it is worth it to the system to have the Death Penalty in place. It is a hard call. As you look back at the criminal Justice System as u. S. Attorney, what was your biggest disappointment . Well, the biggest disappointment and obviously, disappointment 9 11 happened. Not that we thought we were going to stop every terrorist attack, but clearly we were very focused on doing anything we could, and we did neutralize a number of very dangerous terrorists who would have carried out terrorist attacks had we not gone forward. But collectively it is a national disappointment. Certainly those of us most involved in these cases felt it and i think will always feel it acutely. I want to go back to january 24, 2013. Here is some video. That is why today i am nominating Mary Jo White to lead the securities and Exchange Commission and richard to continue leading the Consumer Financial protection bureau. This guy is bothering me. As a young girl, Mary Jo White was a big fan of the hardy boys. I was, too, by the way. As an adult, she has had a career that the hardy boys could only dream of. She helped prosecute whitecollar criminals and money launderers. In the early 1990s, she brought down john gotti, the head of the gambino crime syndicate, and she brought down terrorists responsible for bombing the World Trade Center and the american embassies in africa. So, i would say thats a pretty good run. You do not want to mess with mary jo. What did you think of that when the president said that . Pretty awesome, i guess. I would like to live up to that. The hardy boys . What were their stories . Mystery stories basically. Nancy drew, i think, was the woman in nancy drew. Detective novels. I had an older brother, i do have an older brother. He read them, so i read them. Any lessons in the hardy boys . I am a cop at heart, and they are all mysteries. Solve a crime. You are essentially pursuing wrongdoers. Nothing could be more highly motivating, and sort of the investigation enables you to bring somebody to justice, expose them to our criminal Justice System or our civil Justice System. That is something that always grabs me. Hardy boys included. So when did the call come to you to be the chairman of the securities and Exchange Commission . About thanksgiving 2013. Who does that kind of thing . The white House Counsel called me to see if i would be interested in doing it. Kathy we had a case together in the private sector. That was my only connection really. What was your Immediate Reaction . My Immediate Reaction is always, i want to think about it youre there were a couple things i wanted to be sure of. One, if i thought i could accomplish something of some significance. What i mean by that is, first i wanted to see and learn about the full range of responsibilities of the sec itself. Some of those wouldbe new learning curves. Some would be not so new learning curves. I sat on the board of the nasdaq exchange. I was essentially a litigator, prosecutor, and enforcement is a big part of the secs docket, but not all of the docket. Due diligence, really. Yes, i can come up these learning curves and actually accomplish what i think the sec needs to accomplish, both on the enforcement front, and also on the policy front. Basically adopting new policies, new rules to make wall street walk a straighter line and protect investors more. So, i wanted to make sure that was the right fit for me. When you were working on nasdaq, did you know Bernie Madoff . I did not. He preceeded my time on nasdaq. On your website, the securities and Exchange Site side, there is a header he securities and Exchange Commission postmadoff reforms. Yes. And there are a lot of them. What impacted that have . A significant impact. Again, you have 4000 extraordinarily dedicated Public Servants in the sec. You are never going to catch every bad guy, but you certainly want to look back which happened. Criticisms were leveled to some degree. React positively to prevent in as many cases as possible somebody like a Bernie Madoff or even lesser fraudsters slipping through any cracks. The reforms you just referred to make us a much Stronger Agency, the system of tips, complaints, and reviews, essentially making sure that when somebody in a Regional Office or one of our examiners gets a bit of information, that it gets to a Central Place of real time and gets to the right people to investigate it and track it down. A much Stronger Agency now. You touched on one i want to ask you about. Encouraging greater cooperation about insiders. It is similar to those used by criminal Law Enforcement these agreements provide the insiders who communicate truthful evidence and they will be eligible for a possible reduction in sanction. Beyond that, why do you think you can work for a corporation and whistleblow and keep your job, even though the government says they cannot touch you . There is a tension there, but it does not say that you can keep your job if you are a whistleblower. The way it works out in practice if in fact you as a company are taking action against the whistleblower for all the right reasons, its very hard to convince them that is happening if they have whistleblown. Theres a tensions there, but there is not a prohibition on dealing with the wrongdoing. The whistleblowers, they need to be protected, they need to be encouraged. They are an invaluable source of tips to frauds. At the sec last year, we had a Whistleblower Program. I think 3200 tips came in. Not all of them obviously pan out, but they are very high quality tips. You want to make sure the people are incentivized, which is what our Whistleblower Program does to some degree. There are five commissioners. You are one of five and the chairman. What power does the chairman have in relation to the other 4 . Adopt a new rule, make a new policy. You have to have a 32 vote on that. You also try to get consensus. Youre not seeking a 32 vote. The Staff Reports to me. I deploy the resources we have as smartly as we can. We would like some more. And i set the agenda for the rest of the commission. So, it is up to the chairman of the sec to decide to bring a rule, a new rule, an new way of doing things before the full commission. On your website there is a lot on there under the foreign corrupt practices, i got on and read some of the cases. The one from 2014, i would just read it. The alcoa company. Agreed to 384 million settlement because they paid bribes to government officials in bahrain to maintain key sources of business. 2014. Archer daniels midland. Payments to the ukrainian government, paid 36 million. The Diebold Corporation in ohio, charged with bribing officials like government owned banks with pleasure trips, agreed to pay 48 million to settle. What is wrong with us . I cant talk about those specific cases. I have recused on a couple of those. The foreign corrupt act has been around since 1977 the last 10, 15 years, you have seen tremendous enhanced focus by both the Justice Department, as it has a criminal component, as well as the sec. We enforce those laws together. Obviously at the objective is to get corruption of the system of american businesses, whether theyre operating here or abroad. There are lots of compliance programs, lots of enhancements to compliance or grams to cut down on this, but it keeps coming up, keeps coming up. We will have a subsidiary that is not controlled well enough from the headquarters in the United States, but it is the headquarters in the United States that has the responsibility to make sure that corrupt payments are not going to Foreign Governments. I think companies have made a lot of improvements in this area, but clearly we have along way to go. Certainly among the Top Priorities of both of the Justice Departments and the sec, the foreign corruption is up there. Eli lilly, out of minneapolis, agreed to pay 29 million to settle over improper payments to Foreign Government officials in russia, china, and poland. You also almost want to ask what is wrong with those people . If you find corruption in one country, the next question you immediately ask is a Law Enforcement person is, how are you running your businesses in other countries of the world . More often than not, you find these same problems. We are a global world, global companies. If youre going to be a global company, you have got to control your people, and your subsidiaries, everywhere. It is something we are very intensely focused on, keeping that pressure on. 2005, and author writer was here talking about the enron case. I know you were not involved in this. What has changed, if anything . One of the darker parts of the enron story is the failure of many people in the government to do their job, and in that list you have to include the sec. They are after all in charge of monitoring corporate america. And they had not reviewed the Financial Statement since 1997. The truth is they were overburdened with work. They had not read that disclosure, because they had not looked. Reactions . I do not know the particulars us directly, obviously. I was not there at the time. We have about 9100 reporting companies. We do our staff in corporation finance. They review these public filings periodically. Bigger companies we review are mandated to review more often than before. They do a tremendous job. I think you have seen lots of focus on accounting issues, i am sure reporting issues. I think you see and improvements in financial reporting. You have fewer restatements occurring. But it is still a constant focus of the sec. It is basically the means by which companies talk to investors. If the numbers are wrong or the disclosures are not accurate, investors are harmed. They invest in the Company Based on false information whether it is qualitative or quantitative. Our staff is all over. We do not monitor all of corporate america, but we do have that function of reviewing the Financial Statements. A young man has written about you. Matt taibbi. The headline is the starter on this. Why isnt wall street in jail . I know you are not responsible for that now. But why hasnt someone gone to jail after the 2008 crisis . The sec does not have the criminal powers. I certainly understand the call for accountability. Lots of people tremendously damaged and harmed. You have to step back. Criminal or civil, what is the evidence . Can you make a case . Can you make a criminal case . I think it is a matter for the sec in particular we have a strong record. Again on the civil side. We brought 160, 170 defendants related to the financial crisis, brought cases against them. Among those, 70 ceos and cfos, Senior Executives. We returned over 2. 5 billion to investors. Very strong record at the sec. On the criminal side, again you have to find the evidence of that criminal wrongdoing. You cannot translate automatically, people lost a lot of money, maybe bad risks were taken, therefore crime by this particular person. I understand the frustration. You have to bore into the facts and take it as far up the chain as you can and be vigorous pursuing the cases when you have the evidence. This is matt taibbi again. You and your law practice represented some of these companies. When you step into that role, what do you see there, as a lawyer, that is easy to get up and defend him, and a lot of people think they are a bunch of crooks . There are several questions in that. One is, what are the facts . Was there wrongdoing at all . At what level of the company, if there was wrongdoing . Was the negligence with risktaking . The facts run the gamut. As a private lawyer, obviously you are ethically bound to represent your client well. I think ive done that in my stint in the private sector. Nothing as satisfying, however, as in the public sector. Now i am the chairman of the sec after a significant stent in the private sector. Those experiences make me a much better u. S. Attorney and chairman of the sec, because i have learned a lot through that kind of exposure. Where the things i did when i first got to the sec was change our no it mayno deny settlement protocol. What that means is, you get a settlement, you do not run any litigation risk. In return money is return more quickly. You do not require the defendant to admit his or her wrongdoing in the case of the company. I changed that when i came in to say in certain cases, i think that there is a particular need for Greater Public accountability. And so under that protocol, i think so far for cases involving Major Corporate institutions have had to admit their wrongdoing in addition to agreeing to the terms of the settlement. I think i had a better appreciation, because of my private sector service, of the leverage the sec has when it is in negotiations, particularly with large companies, of really accepting tougher terms. That is one way my private sector experience translated pretty directly as a significant, i think, positive benefit to the Government Service. I dont remember did you represent jpmorgan . Yes. You may not want to comment on this, but as an outsider looking in, people see jpmorgan inc. Or 13 billion in fines to the government, and then you read jamie dimon, the ceo, put 23 billion aside to pay the fines. Stock went up. He signed up for another year, got more money, all that. People are very upset about it out in the country. They have no money and they cannot figure out how wall street can have all this money. Again, we will not talk directly about jpmorgan chase, but i think one of the concerns you always have, you talk about tough penalties, and i think we said before we need tougher penalties. We need to return those moneys to harmed investors. But what really deters wrongdoing in the future . What deters it . That is one of the toughest questions about Law Enforcement. I think it works there, but it is cyclical. You have a lot of tough, highprofile prosecutions. You see the degree it goes down. What level of sanctions will deter Going Forward . You must focus on not just the financial institutions, but the individuals who are accountable for the conduct, because of the problem and be very vigorous in pursuing those individuals. One of the strongest remedies the sec has, you cannot send someone to jail, but you can bar someone from being an officer or director in a public company. You can bar them from the industry. That is a significant punishment. Sometimes money in and of itself, particularly if you have a lot, does not have the enforcement bike that it ought to. You testified when you were nominated, and weve got a clip there is only one member of the senate who voted against you. This is the fellow you will see here on the screen, Sherrod Brown of ohio. I think the public investor should know that i am their advocate, that i have and i say the track record, because it is good to give them something concrete to look at, and i think i was extremely, exceptionally aggressive against large institutions, against ceos, Senior Executive types, and before that, i was in the private sector, where i started. I have that track record. I am the same person who, in this instance, if im confirmed, the American Public will be my client, and i will work as zealously as possible on behalf of them. Thank you, miss white. He voted against you, but he was the only one. How did you do that . I dont know if i can say on cspan. [laughter] you had 97 or 99 votes . It is public service. Nothing is more satisfying to do. Im an independent person. I am a registered independent. I am not a democrat or republican. I do not come with a preset agenda as to how things ought to come out. I just try to do the right thing, to protect investors as well as i can. I think my private sector experience enhances my ability to do that. Would you say for everything in government that works better that way . It is hard to generalize that way. Im the first to say i have not been a banking regulator. I have not been in a model where people may stay on the regulatory side for 30 years and then they go and work for companies on the same issues. You have to be, i think, very careful about there is your service does not interfere with any way in what youre doing it your job. My two models in exposures which is why i have the perspective that i do the u. S. Attorneys office, the must independent office on the planet, sec, a close second. They are probably tied as the most independent agencies, i think, in our government. The president calls you up and says, madam chairman, mary jo, i want you to do this for this corporation. What do you say to him . First, he will not make that call. If he did, i would say its not appropriate for us to be talking. One of the first things president obama said to me after i was confirmed, he said and now i cant talk to you again, ever. I would not expect to get such a call. If i were to get such a call, i would clearly say, its not appropriate to be having this call. The chairman take either side i really want you to do this or this particular client in my district. It is important. And if you dont, i am going to cut your appropriations. What would you say . Same kind of response. Basically we are there to do the right thing. It sounds like you are on a bit of a soapbox. Uninfluenced by anything, basically. If you do something that they do not like and often you do something that they do not like in this job there are different constituencies for rule a or rule b. You make somebody mad every time you do something. You certainly hope it should not have consequences on appropriations, but you cant even think about that in your decisionmaking. And i dont find that difficult, not to think about it. Not to say it has occurred. Clearly we do not have enough resources. No question about that. We do not have enough resources for our vast responsibilities. We need more. But not for a moment does that tempt you to deviate would you talk about that person . If there was an inappropriate call, i certainly would. I want you to put this into context. That is why we got the sec. That is why we got the sec. Has it lived up to its promise . I think it has absolutely lived up to its promise over the years. It is the unique agency. It is uniquely strong. It is the investors advocate. That does not mean we are not constantly focused on doing more and doing it better. Why did we have all of this derivative stuff and credit default swaps and Lehman Brothers falling and why did the sec miss that . I would not say the sec missed that. No agency can prevent every financial crisis. We certainly have more tools under the doddfrank legislation. One piece in this neither the sec, nor the cftc was permitted to regulate the derivatives market. We are now, thanks to doddfrank. We now have those tools. And it is good we have those tools. How much greed have you seen in your life up there in new york city . There is a lot of greed everywhere. Theres a lot of greed everywhere. You see the petty greed factor, too. Even with the high and mighty who make money of money. All of a sudden a little tiny piece of something theyve done dishonestly to get just a little bit more money and you go, why . Why is this happening . You have to be present everywhere, appear to be present everywhere, and when you have cases that send messages, make sure everybody is hearing those messages so they are not tempted to do that. What is the one thing you want to say you accomplished other than the broad premise of protecting the American People is there one thing that you want to do as the chairman of the sec . There will be a lot of mandated rulemakings under the legislation to make us all safer with the financial crisis. I think the market structures that are there. There are lots of multiple exchanges, lots of learning on that, not a whole lot of agreement on what kind of impact that is having. I want us to attend very closely to those issues during my tenure, take the right steps, and then be a really strong enforcement presence. 4000 employees, five commissioners. How much do you spend every year . Our budget is 1. 3 billion. It is not as much as the president requested for us, which is 1. 6 billion. It is what the American People get for our budget, i think, is just enormous. Taking our Enforcement Division alone, and we have a lot of divisions that oversee the markets, trading and markets in different divisions. I guess 1300 of our 4000 in enforcement. This past year they essentially got orders to return 3. 4 billion to investors. Do the math. That would be over 2 million per employee who did that. Just in terms of those metrics, each person we have is returning over 2 billion. But thats just the beginning of it. Thats just a way to see it starkly. Everywhere throughout the agency, we are overseeing the stock markets, the exchanges, writing the rules for wall street, looking at those Financial Statements for the public companies, and the bang for the buck is just tremendous for the American People for the agency. Mary jo white, chairman of the securities and Exchange Commission. We are out of time. Thank you very much. For a free transcript or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at qanda. Org. Also available as a cspan podcast. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] next couple we will be taking your calls and comments live on washington journal. Prot, the house will hold a forma session at 2 00 p. M. If more than one entity manages the key identifiers of the internet, then by nature the internet will no longer be one net. At the heart of the Domain Name System is the Root Services system. Very few people appreciate that in order to resolve names on the internet there was a root system that makes that work for the entire planet. All names are resolved to ensure that when you type www. Cspan. Org, for example, or any other website name, you go to the exact site that cspan wants you to go to all the time, every time, for the last two plus decades. The head of the Internet Corporation on the role they play in assigning new internet domain names tonight on the communicators. This morning on washington journal, nancy cook talks about the job report and antipoverty programs. Later, the executive director of the National Center for learning disabilities discusses government funding for students with special needs. As always, we will take your calls. Washington journal is next. Welcome to the washington journal. Sxsw routinely draws highprofile guests. Snowden who is still living as a fugitive in moscow will speak at sxsw later today by live video. That is our topic is morning. We want to hear from you on whether or not snowden should address that gathering. You can also reach out to us online. Good morning, everyone. This appearance is certainly drawing lots of controversy. Many people, including some members of congress say that they actually think he should not speak at the gathering. Here is a statement from congressman mike pompeo