The reason both the Democratic and Republican
establishments are in full on panic mode about the rise of Donald Trump and
Bernie Sanders is a deep seated fear that the plebs have finally woken
up.
Democrats rail against big corporations, while Republicans
rail against big government. This scheme has been used to successfully divide
and conquer the public for decades while big government and big business
successfully schemed to divert all wealth and power to an ever
smaller minuscule segment of the population — themselves.
It took awhile, but the
people are finally starting getting it and they are royally pissed off. One of
the primary mechanisms for this historic elite theft has been the creation of a
two-tiered justice system in which the rich, powerful and connected are never
prosecuted for their criminality. Instead, the government actively protects
them by pretending corporate entities commit crimes as opposed to individuals.
Of course, this is impossible, but yet it’s how the government handles white
collar crime. The Orwellian named “Justice Department” casually utilizes
deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs), in which companies pay a little fine
and the criminals themselves walk away with not just their freedom, but ill
gotten monetary gains as well.
Nowhere is this most apparent than when it comes to the big
banks. The individuals who work at these criminal cartels can
literally do anything they want with total impunity. One of the most egregious
examples of this was the $1.9 billion settlement arranged with HSBC for
laundering Mexican drug cartel money and dealing with sanctioned countries. If
you or I did this we’d be sitting in a concrete box eating porridge through a
straw for the rest of our lives, but when “masters of the world” at big banks
do it, the parent company just pays a slap on the wrist fine and life goes
on. That’s how oligarch justice works.
Although
the Department of Justice and HSBC thought the money laundering case was
settled ancient history, a determined chemist from Pennsylvania is throwing a
wrench into their plans and it could have major implications.
The Wall Street
Journal reports:
WEST CHESTER, Pa.—When Dean
Moore ran into roadblocks with a request for mortgage relief, he did what many
people do: He sat down at his kitchen table to bang out an angry letter.
The letter has thrust Mr.
Moore, a chemist, and his wife, Ann Marie Fletcher-Moore, a part-time bookstore
manager, into a high-stakes battle over whether HSBC Holdings PLC must release a
secret report on its compliance with a $1.9 billion
money-laundering settlement.
A “secret” report.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
The disclosure would be the
first ever for this type of case and would shine a light on an increasingly
common practice for banks accused of breaking the law. Instead of being
prosecuted, banks typically enter into settlements under which they often agree
to be overseen by
monitors whose detailed judgments are kept secret. Judge
Gleeson’s order has the potential to dial back that confidentiality, opening a
new channel of information that prosecutors say could threaten the viability of
such settlements in future cases.
If you don’t get by now
that America is a banana republic, there’s little hope for you.
HSBC and Justice Department
prosecutors have opposed the release, saying it wouldn’t do much to help Mr.
Moore with his mortgage predicament. Judge Gleeson, in his order to unseal the
report, said that was irrelevant.
Big banks and the U.S.
government are simply 100% in bed together. Constantly scheming to prevent citizens
from learning the truth.
The bank is appealing the
ruling, but already it may be having an impact. HSBC disclosed last week that
the January report by independent monitor Michael Cherkasky found instances of
potential financial crime and had “significant concerns” about the bank’s pace
of progress in complying with the money-laundering settlement.
A legitimate government
that cared about the people would want the public to know this, but not the
U.S. government.
The Moores say the experience
has been surreal. The couple lives in this Philadelphia suburb with their four
children, two dogs and a 15-year-old rabbit and had never spent much time in
court other than for jury duty. They have nevertheless held their own
against a phalanx of lawyers from the British bank and the Justice Department. A
recent hearing in a Brooklyn federal court “was like ‘Law and Order,’” said
Mrs. Fletcher-Moore, who is 50 years old.
HSBC admitted in its 2012
settlement that it failed to catch at least $881 million in drug-trafficking
proceeds laundered through its U.S. bank and that its staff stripped data from
transactions with Iran, Libya and Sudan to evade U.S. sanctions.
The mortgage was administered
by HSBC, and the Moores say they wrote to the bank starting in 2008 asking it
to temporarily lower the 7% interest rate. They said the lender
appeared receptive, only for its representatives to misplace documents needed
to complete their application for a loan modification several times.
Frustrated, the Moores
researched the bank online last year and stumbled upon news of the
money-laundering settlement and the monitor’s secret report. The Moores
say they believe the report details faulty internal controls like those they
encountered when trying to modify their loan.
If his ruling stands, it would be “the first time we get to see what
happens after a bank settles a prosecution,” said Brandon Garrett, a professor at
University of Virginia’s law school who has studied the monitor system.
Which is exactly what the U.S. government doesn’t want
people to see.
HSBC and the Justice Department
are still fighting to keep the report private and have appealed Judge Gleeson’s
ruling to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. An appeals court ruling
could be months away. “I feel like a very small boat in a very large ocean,”
Mr. Moore wrote at one point, in a letter responding to some of their
arguments.
