Trump Delivers for His Wall Street Pals

The Trump Administration is continuing on its path of swiftly and brazenly casting aside ethical and anti-corruption shackles that have sought to constrain abuse by American business.

Wall Street in particular has cause for rejoicing. One can hear the Dom Perignon corks popping.

President Donald Trump, advised by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and a slew of top officials who all have past connections to Goldman Sachs, is sending a clear message to business: “You no longer have to worry about government enforcement actions – we’re not interested.”

Several days ago, the U.S. Justice Department fired Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Since taking office in 2009, Bharara has even-handedly prosecuted top New York State Democratic Party and Republican politicians, launched major insider-trading and corruption investigations into financial firms and other prominent enterprises.

Trump buying favors for Rupert Murdoch

According to New York magazine, a major beneficiary of Bharara’s dismissal is Trump’s friend and media promoter, Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the Fox media empire.

Bharara has been leading a major probe of Fox which, reports New York: “is looking at a number of potential crimes, including whether Fox News executives broke laws by allegedly obtaining journalists’ phone records or committed mail and wire fraud by hiding financial settlements paid to women who accused Roger Ailes (former Fox head of news) of sexual harassment.”

More insider dealing among the billionaire class

Trump is an avid viewer of Fox news and has given it more interviews than any other television network. He personally intervened a few months ago to help Roger Ailes resolve sexual harassment litigation.

Now, according to The New York Post, one of the possible replacements for Bharara who is being considered by the White House is Marc Mukasey, who just happens to be Ailes’s lawyer.

Unshackling coproate abuse – yet again

Firing Bharara appears to be part of a much broader strategy to reduce enforcement of anti-corruption and other laws and regulations that constrain the activities of financial firms.

Don’t forget, over the last eight years the world’s largest banks have paid $321 billion in fines for all manner of violations, including $42 billion alone for illegitimate transactions last year, according to a study by the Boston Consulting Group.

Overwhelmingly, the cases brought against the banks have been by U.S. authorities, including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The “Anything Goes” President

President Trump’s nominee to head the SEC now is Walter “Jay” Clayton, a prominent New York lawyer who has built his career representing such major current and former banks as Lehman Brothers, J. P. Morgan Chase and Goldman, Sachs. He is widely expected to sharply reduce SEC enforcement staff.

Goldman Sachs, the ultimate insider

Meanwhile, the chief architects of revising and watering down the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act, which has sought to increase Wall Street regulation since the financial crisis, are Trump’s National Economic Policy
Adviser Gary Cohn, the former chief operating officer at Goldman Sachs, and new Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

And the White House has just announced that it is going to nominate James Donovan as Deputy Treasury Secretary – Donovan is a Goldman Sachs investment executive.

Stressing the importance of reducing banking regulation, President Trump told a White House meeting with bank chief executives recently that: “We expect to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank, because frankly, I have so many people, friends of mine that had nice businesses, they can’t borrow money.”

In fact, the U.S. banking system, despite all the fines it has paid, has not been healthier in years. Its profits are up, its capital base is strong and thanks to years of easy monetary policies by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board the banks are awash with liquidity.

President Trump has famously said that his friends cannot get loans in this lending environment. Of course, he has not given the names of his friends. If any exist, they must be real duds.

Method to the madness

The firing of prosecutors, the appointment of top officials with extraordinary Wall Street backgrounds and the assault on banking regulation are all closely connected.

They are components of a policy that ignores unethical American business behavior and hurls aside people and rules that assiduously combined to ensure that we do not see a rerun of the 2008 financial crisis.