Tag Archives: HSBC

Compromised Justice

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Last Wednesday The Wall Street Journal ran an article about the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton and her emails. There are some genuine concerns about some aspects of the email investigation that the FBI chose to ignore.

The article reports:

The calculated release before the long Labor Day weekend suggests political favoritism, and the report shows the FBI didn’t pursue evidence of potential false statements, obstruction of justice and destruction of evidence.

Mr. Comey’s concessions start with his decision not to interview Mrs. Clinton until the end of his investigation, a mere three days before he announced his conclusions. Regular FBI practice is to get a subject on the record early then see if his story meshes with what agents find. In this case they accepted Mrs. Clinton’s I-don’t-recall defenses after the fact.

The notes also show the G-men never did grill Mrs. Clinton on her “intent” in setting up her server. Instead they bought her explanation that it was for personal convenience. This helped Mr. Comey avoid concluding that her purpose was to evade statutes like the Federal Records Act. Mr. Comey also told Congress that indicting her without criminal intent would pose a constitutional problem. But Congress has written many laws that don’t require criminal intent, and negligent homicide (for example) has never been unconstitutional.

The article also notes that Clinton advisors may have participated in a cover-up to stonewall any investigation.

There is contradictory testimony by Mrs. Clinton’s aides:

Consider page 10 of the FBI report: “Clinton’s immediate aides, to include [Huma] Abedin, [Cheryl] Mills, Jacob Sullivan, and [redacted] told the FBI they were unaware of the existence of the private server until after Clinton’s tenure at State or when it became public knowledge.”

That’s amazing given that Ms. Abedin had her own email account on the private server. It is also contradicted by page 3: “At the recommendation of Huma Abedin, Clinton’s long-time aide and later Deputy Chief of Staff at State, in or around fall 2008, [ Bill Clinton aide Justin] Cooper contacted Bryan Pagliano . . . to build the new server system and to assist Cooper with the administration of the new server system.”

The FBI must also have ignored two emails referred to by the State Inspector General showing Ms. Mills and Ms. Abedin discussing the server while they worked at State: “hrc email coming back—is server okay?” Ms. Mills asked Ms. Abedin and Mr. Cooper in a Feb. 27, 2010 email.

The article concludes:

The FBI’s kid-glove treatment of Mrs. Clinton raises serious doubts about the seriousness of Mr. Comey’s probe. His July 5 public rebuke of her “extremely careless” handling of secrets has masked that Mrs. Clinton and her aides were given a pass on much of their behavior and dubious answers. The entire episode is another Jim Comey scar on the FBI’s reputation.

So why the kid-glove treatment? Breitbart posted an article on Saturday that might provide a few clues.

A few nuggets from the Breitbart article:

When President Obama nominated Comey to become FBI director in 2013, Comey promised the United States Senate that he would recuse himself on all cases involving former employers.

But Comey earned $6 million in one year alone from Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin became a Clinton Foundation donor that very year.

…In 2013, Comey became a board member, a director, and a Financial System Vulnerabilities Committee member of the London bank HSBC Holdings.

“Mr. Comey’s appointment will be for an initial three-year term which, subject to re-election by shareholders, will expire at the conclusion of the 2016 Annual General Meeting,” according to HSBC company records.

HSBC Holdings and its various philanthropic branches routinely partner with the Clinton Foundation. For instance, HSBC Holdings has partnered with Deutsche Bank through the Clinton Foundation to “retrofit 1,500 to 2,500 housing units, primarily in the low- to moderate-income sector” in “New York City.”

“Retrofitting” refers to a Green initiative to conserve energy in commercial housing units. Clinton Foundation records show that the Foundation projected “$1 billion in financing” for this Green initiative to conserve people’s energy in low-income housing units.

The article at Breitbart then goes on to list some of the connections with Peter Comey, the brother of James Comey, and the Clintons.

The obvious conclusion is that the number of honest people in Washington who actually care about the interests of the American people rather than their own wealth could probably be counted on one hand with fingers left over. The only way to clean up this mess is to bring in an outsider who will thoroughly shake up this mess. Hillary Clinton is obviously not that person as she seems to be at the heart of at least half of the scandals and undercover deals going on.

The Neighborhood Bully Meets His Match

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One of the unpleasant outcomes of the financial crisis of 2008 is the way the Obama Administration has treated many of the banks who wrote some of the bad mortgages. Never mind that many of the bad mortgages were required to be written because of government regulations regarding discrimination or that some of the leading Democrats in Congress were making sure that bad loans were continually being made, the Obama Administration is going to make the big banks pay for bad policy on the part of the government. Well, one bank has decided to stand up to the bully that the federal government has become.

The Wall Street Journal reported today that the Japanese bank Nomura is refusing to settle out of court in a case brought against them by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA).

The article reports:

The claim is that Fan and Fred—the government-created dominators of the mortgage market—were unwitting victims of the banks. To believe this fairy tale, you have to ignore the findings of a bipartisan congressional inquiry, as well as separate federal lawsuits in which the government is arguing that Fan and Fred did the misleading.

Yet regulators figured that the banks would probably cave to avoid unpleasant publicity and a juror pool angry about bank bailouts. And 17 banks did cave, paying the Beltway bandits nearly $18 billion to make these Little Orphan Fannie claims disappear. Firms like Bank of America , Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan all wrote checks to buy peace with the politicos.

Nomura did not settle out of court and the trial is set for March 16. This is causing the government lawyers to lose no small amount of sleep.

The article reports:

In January the feds dropped their claims for damages. The government claims it can recover as much or more from the “equitable” claims, in which Nomura would merely be required to buy back the securities it sold to Fan and Fred. But Nomura says the damage claims were the most lucrative part of the case.

Why would the government want to limit its potential winnings shortly before the trial? Well, because abandoning damage claims lets the government avoid a jury trial. That means leaving it all to federal Judge Denise Cote, who is well known for tilting toward the government against business and has been siding with the feds in pre-trial rulings.

FHFA’s lawyer explained in a recent filing that a “bench trial clearly would conserve time and assets.” That may be true. But when the defendant is a large multinational bank and the government doesn’t want to face a jury in this era of public anger at big banks, that tells you how much confidence the feds have in their case.

This trial could be very interesting. Last fall, Nomura Bank offered evidence to show that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac went shopping for sub-prime mortgages in order to align themselves with their political partners.

It would be nice to see this go before a jury that would get a chance to see the true facts of the case. The Obama Administration has engaged in shakedowns of anyone they think they can get money from or anyone they consider a political enemy. It would be nice to see that practice end.