House Republicans on Monday unveiled legislation that would decriminalize a broad swath of corporate malfeasance, a move that injects white-collar crime issues into the thus-far bipartisan agenda on criminal justice reform.

The House bill would eliminate a host of white-collar crimes where the damaging acts are merely reckless, negligent or grossly negligent. If enacted, it would make it more difficult for federal authorities to pursue executive wrongdoing, from financial fraud to environmental pollution.

Department of Justice spokesman Peter Carr blasted the legislation in a statement provided to HuffPost, saying it “would create confusion and needless litigation, and significantly weaken, often unintentionally, countless federal statutes,” including “those that play an important role in protecting the public welfare … protecting consumers from unsafe food and medicine.”

– From the Huffington Post article: House Bill Would Make It Harder To Prosecute White-Collar Crime

A key key theme here at Liberty Blitzkrieg from inception is that there are two tiers of justice in America. One for the rich and powerful, another for the poor and voiceless. It’s even worse than that though, since not only are certain segments of the population above the law, they are actually rewarded for a lack of ethics and criminality.

There is no more perfect example of this than the banker bailouts, in which the one sector of the economy that created and nurtured the financial collapse was rewarded with trillions of dollars in taxpayer backstops and bailouts. This same finance sector has seen a disproportionate amount of all income gains since the “recovery” started, precisely because the bailout itself was designed to help it as opposed to the middle class.

Of course, it’s not just Wall Street. The elite’s minions must also be taken care of. As such, police are allowed to SWAT raid, shoot to kill and rob average Americans via civil asset forfeiture with impunity. In fact, we just learned that police civil asset forfeitures exceeded all burglaries in 2014. So you are actually more likely to be robbed by a government criminal, versus a street thug in today’s America.

As reported by Armstrong Economics:

Between 1989 and 2010, U.S. attorneys seized an estimated $12.6 billion in asset forfeiture cases. The growth rate during that time averaged +19.4% annually. In 2010 alone, the value of assets seized grew by +52.8% from 2009 and was six times greater than the total for 1989. Then by 2014, that number had ballooned to roughly $4.5 billionfor the year, making this 35% of the entire number of assets collected from 1989 to 2010 in a single year. According to the FBI, the total amount of goods stolen by criminals in 2014 burglary offenses suffered an estimated $3.9 billion in property losses. This means that the police are now taking more assets than the criminals.

A free country this is not.

Moving along, deputy attorney general Sally Yates has been garnering a lot of attention since she published the “Yates memo,” which promised to target individuals in cases of corporate wrong doing. This sounds like a good step, but it is extremely disturbing to understand what the Justice Department’s prior stance on the topic was. From the post, Read the One Paragraph That Explains Why No Bankers Have Gone to Jail:

Gone from the manual, for example, is language saying that “federal prosecutors and corporate leaders typically share common goals” in preserving the integrity of the markets and protecting consumers and investors. In its place, the manual will now advise that “one of the most effective ways to combat misconduct is by holding accountable all individuals who engage in wrongdoing.”

So while the Justice Department is seemingly trying to pivot toward a semblance of actual justice, the House of “Representatives” has other ideas.

From the Huffington Post:

WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Monday unveiled legislation that would decriminalize a broad swath of corporate malfeasance, a move that injects white-collar crime issues into the thus-far bipartisan agenda on criminal justice reform. The public debate over criminal justice reform has focused on reducing severe sentences for nonviolent drug offenses. But some influential conservative voices, including the billionaire Koch brothers and the Heritage Foundation, have quietly advocated for curbing prosecution of corporate offenses as well. The House bill would eliminate a host of white-collar crimes where the damaging acts are merely reckless, negligent or grossly negligent. If enacted, it would make it more difficult for federal authorities to pursue executive wrongdoing, from financial fraud to environmental pollution. This is hilarious since prosecution of corporate wrongdoing is essentially unheard of. Recall that federal white collar crime prosecutions are already at a 20-year low.” But of course, to become a true Banana Republic, we must get it down to zero. Department of Justice spokesman Peter Carr blasted the legislation in a statement provided to HuffPost, saying it “would create confusion and needless litigation, and significantly weaken, often unintentionally, countless federal statutes,” including “those that play an important role in protecting the public welfare … protecting consumers from unsafe food and medicine.” In October, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved related reform legislation that does not include language to limit white-collar crime prosecutions, although Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) had pressed for its inclusion. “These are not esoteric matters,” said Robert Weissman, president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen. “There is absolutely no reason for the otherwise laudable criminal justice reform bill to contain any measure to weaken already feeble standards for corporate criminal prosecution.” Well of course there’s a reason. Congress is paid off by corporate criminals.

The Justice Department has been heavily criticized for its weak enforcement against corporate crimes during the Obama years. No Wall Street executives were charged for the misconduct that caused the 2008 financial crisis. Now Congress is working as hard as possible to ensure it stays that way. Let’s never forget what we learned from the post: The U.S. Department of Justice Handles Banker Criminals Like Juvenile Offenders…Literally. In Liberty,

Michael Krieger



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