Earlier today, the Finance Examiner wrote on an interview that Department of Justice Assistant Attorney General, Lenny Breuer, had with PBS on their documentary show, The Untouchables. In the interview, A.A.G Breuer stated that the Justice Department weighed the economic effects before indicting or prosecuting banks and bankers as they investigated fraudulent actions that lead to the 2008 credit crisis and beyond.
Well, just a few hours later on Jan. 23, the Assistant Attorney General is no longer a part of the Justice Department, and has been removed for voicing his opinion on how justice is served in America for the rich and those perceived 'too big to fail', versus the common American who winds up in a Federal courtroom.
As of minutes ago that is no longer the case as his employment contract has been torn up. The WaPo reports, that Lanny A. Breuer is leaving the Justice Department "after leading the agency’s efforts to clamp down on public corruption and financial fraud at the nation’s largest banks, according to several people familiar with the matter....It is not clear when Breuer intends to leave, nor what he plans to do once he departs, but it is certain that the prosecutor’s days in office are winding down, according to people who were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter." - Washington Post via Zerohedge
The primary cause behind the sudden removal from his Assistant A.G. position appears intrinsically linked to the opinion he gave to PBS, which was aired last night in the documentary, The Untouchables.
L.B.: Well, I think I am pursuing justice. And 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 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’s 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 factor we need to know and understand. - PBS.org
Ironically, the public defender did very little in bringing criminal elements in the banking system to justice, and instead, spent a portion of his time in another scandal known as Fast and Furious. A.A.G. Breuer has in the past, testified before the Senate in a hearing on the gun-walking program, and admitted that he failed to alert other members in the Justice Department of illegal government actions that provided guns to criminal organizations in Mexico.
During Senate hearings in 2011, Breuer admitted that he failed to alert other Justice Department officials that federal agents had allowed guns to illegally flow into Mexico and onto U.S. streets between 2006 and 2007. The practice, known as “gun walking,” was also a key part of the Obama administration’s Phoenix gun trafficking operation, Fast and Furious.
In the end, it is not surprising that the Department of Justice would immediately remove the A.A.G from his position, as his assertion on PBS that the leading prosecutorial office in the government segregates justice differently for entities that have economic and financial importance, would undoubtedly bring an undo spotlight by Congress to the work being done in the Justice Department. Additionally, A.A.G. Breuer's work with the ongoing Fast and Furious scandal could lead to more information being hidden from the public on how the government failed in their duties to fight crime, or in the extreme case, that they abetted criminal activity themselves.
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