in front of them, bank organizations that pleaded that pleaded guilty to moneylaundering for drug cartels and terrorists. they paid the fine. they knew people had to make the decision. but even after they plead guilty, brewer would go after none of the people involved. people commit crimes. there is case after case like that. why hasn t the department of justice been more aggressive? and is there the possibility of a deal between the obama administration and wall street? your thoughts. well rahm emanuel was out collecting money from wall street in the first cycle, collecting money from wall street for that first election, he was telling people that the man behind the curtain, president obama, who was running for president at the time, when he was talking tough about getting tough with bankers and actually cleaning up the culture of banking, that he wasn t really wasn t serious. and in the end, what ended
speak to regulators, should speak to experts, because if i bring a case against institution a, and as a result of bringing that case, there is some huge economic effect, if it creates a ripple effect so that suddenly counterparties and other financial institutions or other companies that had nothing to do with this are affected badly, it s a fact that we need to know and understand. and i am joined tonight by mike papantonio, host of the ring of fire radio show and former president of the national trial lawyers association. good to have you with us tonight. how are you. this documentary place and lanny breuer resigns. i don t know what the connection is. what do you make of it? should have followed the dots a little bit further. the very reasons that lanny breuer resigned should be some of the reasons that eric holder should be thinking about. ed, this is a simple case to understand. what eric holder and breur had
practices and they have come up with nothing. lots of unanswered questions remain, and now the man responsible for these investigations, assistant attorney general laney brewer has resigned. well, brewer went on record in a speech at the new york bar association. martin smith asked brewer about that speech. in that speech you made a reference to losing sleep at night, worrying about what a lawsuit might result in. at a large financial institution. right. is that really the job of a prosecutor, to worry about anything other than simply pursuing justice? well, i think i am pursuing justice. i think the entire responsibility of the department is to pursue justice. but in any given case, i think i and prosecutors around the country being responsible should
what are eric holder s ties to the law firms. eric holder and the other top five officials at the department of justice all came from large firms that do a lot of business with wall street. covington and brling was eric holder r-r s tpeufrplt he was part of the white color criminal defense practice, along with laney brewer. they did a lot of business with wall street. it still represents goldman sacks, bank of america, jpmorgan. et cetera. bill: would some of the attorneys go work at the department of justice? would it work in reverse or would it work hand in glove. it s a revolving door. when eric holder became attorney general in 2009 he came over and brought over with him five other attorneys, two of which have returned back to coug covington and are working on white color criminal defense cases, again in some instances involving large financial institutions. bill: your suggestion then is that he does not go after the firms because it s cronyism,
promised me swift action, even though this is predecessor has stalled for about a year before she left. if eric holder is telling us that they are not going to have answers until after the election, that would be like nixon saying, we ll release the tapes in 50 years. ultimately the time has come and passed for them to tell us how we were misled. martha: you said that you won t file these, you re sort of giving them one more chance. what is your drop-dead date for the documents that you want? well if the attorney general s answer, we ve given you all we re going to give you then the drop-dead date is immediate. if there is any real compliance then we would look forward to evaluate that material. understand, people including laney brewer in this office of the attorney general clearly knew a lot, were involved and we can t get answers. when it comes to the false statement made before congress and not taken back for ten months, we want to know who knew about it and continued to have a