Hey everybody!! I think I wanna go out and really, really, really break some laws today!!! Doesn't that sound like fun?
Oh! Wait. Never mind. Sorry, I almost forgot. I'm not a member of "that" class.
If you've ever been arrested on a
drug charge, if you've ever spent even a day in jail for having a stem
of marijuana in your pocket or "drug paraphernalia" in your gym bag,
Assistant Attorney General and longtime Bill Clinton pal Lanny Breuer
has a message for you: Bite me.
Breuer this week signed off on a
settlement deal with
the British banking giant HSBC that is the ultimate insult to every
ordinary person who's ever had his life altered by a narcotics charge.
Despite the fact that HSBC admitted to laundering billions of dollars
for Colombian and Mexican drug cartels (among others) and violating a
host of important banking laws (from the Bank Secrecy Act to the Trading
With the Enemy Act), Breuer and his Justice Department elected not to
pursue criminal prosecutions of the bank, opting instead for a
"record" financial settlement of $1.9 billion, which as one analyst noted is about
five weeks of income for the bank.
...
Though this was not stated explicitly, the government's rationale in
not pursuing criminal prosecutions against the bank was apparently
rooted in concerns that putting executives from a "systemically
important institution" in jail for drug laundering would threaten the
stability of the financial system. The
New York Times put it this way:
Federal and state authorities have chosen not to indict
HSBC, the London-based bank, on charges of vast and prolonged money
laundering, for fear that criminal prosecution would topple the bank
and, in the process, endanger the financial system.
...
Um? Okay. So. We're told that laws are laws are laws. We are a nation of laws. Appears, however, that laws are or can be selective.
Of course, we already know this. Wonder if anyone else will notice the hypocrisy?
Merely documenting.
Original can be found HERE
~K
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