Current Events > Trump has been so weak on crime

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/03/us/trump-sec-doj-corporate-penalties.html

In the final months of the Obama administration, Walmart was under pressure from federal officials to pay nearly $1 billion and accept a guilty plea to resolve a foreign bribery investigation.

Barclays faced demands that it pay nearly $7 billion to settle civil claims that it had sold toxic mortgage investments that helped fuel the 2008 financial crisis, and the Royal Bank of Scotland was ensnared in a criminal investigation over its role in the crisis.

The three corporate giants complained that the Obama administration was being unreasonable and stood their ground, according to people briefed on the investigations. After President Trump took office, they looked to his administration for a more sympathetic ear and got one.

Federal prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission have yet to charge Walmart, and the Justice Department reached a much lower settlement agreement with Barclays in March, for $2 billion. R.B.S. paid a civil penalty, but escaped criminal charges altogether.

Across the corporate landscape, the Trump administration has presided over a sharp decline in financial penalties against banks and big companies accused of malfeasance, according to analyses of government data and interviews with more than 60 former and current federal officials. The approach mirrors the administrations aggressive deregulatory agenda throughout the federal government.

The New York Times and outside experts tallied enforcement activity at the S.E.C. and the Justice Department, the two most powerful agencies policing the corporate and financial sectors. Comparing cases filed during the first 20 months of the Trump presidency with the final 20 months of the Obama administration, the review found:

A 62 percent drop in penalties imposed and illicit profits ordered returned by the S.E.C., to $1.9 billion under the Trump administration from $5 billion under the Obama administration;

A 72 percent decline in corporate penalties from the Justice Departments criminal prosecutions, to $3.93 billion from $14.15 billion, and a similar percent drop in civil penalties against financial institutions, to $7.4 billion;

A lighter touch toward the banking industry, with the S.E.C. ordering banks to pay $1.7 billion during the Obama period, nearly four times as much as in the Trump era, and Mr. Trumps Justice Department bringing 17 such cases, compared with 71.

While career officials in the federal government have continued to investigate wrongdoing at companies large and small, some of the top political appointees under Mr. Trump have led a philosophical shift in governing that favors big business and prioritizes the interests of individual investors.

Many Republicans in regulatory and law enforcement roles have resisted corporate penalties, suggesting that they unfairly punish a companys shareholders for the misconduct of employees. Democratic appointees have more often maintained that shareholders wrongly benefit from ill-gotten gains, no matter who was responsible for them, and that tough penalties could deter future lawbreaking.

If the balance tilted toward a heavier hand in corporate penalties under former President Barack Obama even as critics argued that his administration did not do enough to punish top bankers after the crisis it began to swing in the opposite direction under Mr. Trump, the data show.

With the exception of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a small agency where a new enforcement director has presided over an uptick in penalties and a Trump-appointed chairman vowed no pause in enforcement, the new approach extends across the federal financial enforcement regime.
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The mantra of the Trump admin is arrest more brown people, give more rich white people breaks

Used to be that Republicans cared that we were a nation of laws, law and order, and being tough on crime. What happened to them that made them change their minds?
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he's very strong on crime. In fact he only hires criminals, that way he can keep a close eye on them
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A_Good_Boy posted...

Used to be that Republicans cared that we were a nation of laws, law and order, and being tough on crime. What happened to them that made them change their minds?

They're in on the white collar crime. Would you arrest your friends? For shaaaaame
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Libs one second: He's literally Hitler 2.0 coming to kill gays and minorities and strip us of our freedoms and overstep checks and balances for his or tyrannical gain!!!

Lions next second: he's too soft.

Stfu

OBCD posted...

Libs one second:

Lions next second:

???

He only became president to do two things: Reverse everything Obama did and to utilize the presidency to benefit big business and himself

Trump is completely lenient on white collar crime.
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Rich people don't commit crimes. They commit misunderstandings.
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NibeIungsnarf posted...

OBCD posted...

Libs one second:

Lions next second:

???

That's right. Hang onto my autocorrect

A_Good_Boy posted...

Used to be that Republicans cared that we were a nation of laws, law and order, and being tough on crime. What happened to them that made them change their minds?

A big ass sack with a dollar sign on it.
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So the problem is that he's not putting people in jail for no reason
yeah that's... bad apparently

OBCD posted...

Libs one second: He's literally Hitler 2.0 coming to kill gays and minorities and strip us of our freedoms and overstep checks and balances for his or tyrannical gain!!!

Lions next second: he's too soft.

Stfu

You're acting like there's a double standard in these two statements, or like white-collar crime is somehow an inalienable right.
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hotcegaI posted...

So the problem is that he's not putting people in jail for no reason
yeah that's... bad apparently

no reason
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Morning bump
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Please stop responding to such low karma troll accounts.

On-topic, totally unexpected.
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white collar crime needs harsher punishments. the consequences of those crimes are much more far reaching than most other types of crimes, if not all (especially when done with giant business empires like walmart or global banks)
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Trump's priority at the moment is immigration. Once he has addressed that, he will certainly move forward with crime.
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Trump has made it so great that no one wants to commit crimes
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But I was told Trump cares for the common American?
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ThyCorndog posted...

white collar crime needs harsher punishments. the consequences of those crimes are much more far reaching than most other types of crimes, if not all (especially when done with giant business empires like walmart or global banks)

Maybe I'm naive, but it also seems like the government stands to get more out of going after white collar criminals.
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Anteaterking posted...

ThyCorndog posted...

white collar crime needs harsher punishments. the consequences of those crimes are much more far reaching than most other types of crimes, if not all (especially when done with giant business empires like walmart or global banks)

Maybe I'm naive, but it also seems like the government stands to get more out of going after white collar criminals.

Scary brown people aren't committing white collar crime, white people like Trump are committing that kind of crime. It's even named after his favorite type of people. So of course he's lenient on it, he's busy inventing and harassing black identity extremists and placing brown kids in concentration camps.
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