Bankers from major institutions still haven't been held responsible for financial crash

Three months ago, then-Attorney General Eric Holder gave his prosecutors 90 days to determine whether they could charge individual Wall Street executives with crimes related to the 2008 financial crisis.

“I’ve asked the U.S. attorneys … over the next 90 days to look at their cases and to try to develop cases against individuals and to report back in at 90 days with regard to whether or not they think they’re going to be able to successfully bring criminal and or civil cases against those individuals,” Holder said in a Feb. 17 speech at the National Press Club.

Holder is gone now, and this week that deadline passed. The Justice Department, however, is dodging questions about the former attorney general’s pledge.

“It is our policy not to publicly discuss on-going investigations,” said Justice spokesman Patrick Rodenbush.

In the seven years since the financial crisis, none of the top executives at the giant Wall Street banks that fueled and profited from the housing bubble have been personally held to account. These bankers, who were the architects and major traders in mortgage-backed securities, have been largely immune to criminal charges and personal liability even as their institutions have admitted wrongdoing and paid billions in fines and restitution.

A review by the Center for Public Integrity of the enforcement actions and civil lawsuits filed by the Justice Department, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Securities and Exchange Commission reveals that these agencies have been far more likely to charge or sue individuals who work at small and medium sized banks, and foreign financial firms, than those that work at domestic banking giants such as J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. or Citigroup.

Of the criminal cases tied to the financial crisis that the Justice Department lists on its web site, none are related to the five biggest U.S. banks. Two defendants who were unsuccessfully prosecuted ran a hedge fund for the now-defunct investment bank Bear Stearns. About a dozen others are from smaller banks or foreign institutions. Of the more than 100 bank executives named in lawsuits by the Securities and Exchange Commission, only four were from the top five banks, according to cases listed on the SEC web site.

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Copyright 2014 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.