By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 16, 2017 

Less than two weeks after Mary Jo White was nominated to become Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission by President Barack Obama on January 24, 2013, White filed an ethics disclosure letter advising that she would “retire” from her position representing Wall Street banks at the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton. White wrote on this subject in great detail, stating:

“Upon confirmation, I will retire from the partnership of Debevoise & Plimpton, LLP. Following my retirement, the law firm will not owe me an outstanding partnership share for either 2012 or any part of 2013. As a retired partner, I will be entitled to the use of secretarial services, office space and a blackberry at the firm’s expense. For the duration of my appointment, I will forgo these three benefits, though I may pay for some secretarial services at my own expense. Pursuant to the Debevoise & Plimpton, LLP Partners Retirement Program, I will receive monthly lifetime retirement payments from the firm commencing the month after my retirement. However, within 60 days of my appointment, the firm will make a lump sum payment, in lieu of making monthly retirement payments for the next four years. Within 60 days of my appointment, I also will receive payouts of my interest in the Debevoise & Plimpton LLP Cash Balance Retirement plan and my capital account.”

Yesterday it was widely reported in the business press that Mary Jo White is returning to her former law firm as a partner representing clients who face government investigations. She will also fill the newly created position of Senior Chair of the law firm.

This news is highly significant because it would appear that the U.S. Senate was seriously misled by White’s ethics letter in its deliberations to confirm her as the top cop of Wall Street.

The news is also highly significant because it will mark the fourth time in four decades that Mary Jo White has spun through the revolving doors of Debevoise & Plimpton (where she represented serial law violators) to government service (prosecuting serial law violators). The timeline is as follows:

2002 to 2013: White is a Debevoise & Plimpton partner, representing some of Wall Street’s serially charged banks: JPMorgan Chase, UBS, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley;

1993 to 2002: White is U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (where Wall Street is located);

1990 to 1993: White serves as First Assistant United States Attorney and Acting United States Attorney in the Eastern District of New York;

1983 to 1990: White is litigation partner at Debevoise & Plimpton, where she focuses on white collar defense work, SEC enforcement matters and other corporate work;

1978 to 1981: White works as Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York, where she became Chief Appellate Attorney of the Criminal Division;

1976 to 1978: White is Associate at Debevoise & Plimpton.

White’s representation in 2013 that she was retiring proved very financially beneficial to her. Her Partners Retirement Program entitled her to receive $42,500 per month or $510,000 per year. But as White writes in her ethics letter, (ostensibly as a gesture toward removing the conflict of receiving ongoing monies from her old law firm), Debevoise was going to give her a “lump sum” for four years of payments, or more than $2 million. The Partner’s plan was unfunded, meaning the law firm had to stay in business to make those payments. Getting a cool $2 million out of harm’s way is a smart financial move. On top of that, White indicated in her ethics letter that she was cashing out of the “Debevoise & Plimpton LLP Cash Balance Retirement plan and my capital account.”

Not only was Mary Jo White a deeply conflicted candidate for SEC Chair but her husband, John White, also represented the big Wall Street banks as a partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP. Under Federal ethics rules, the conflicts of the spouse become the conflicts of the government employee. None of this persuaded members of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee (many of whom are richly financed in their political campaigns by Wall Street) to reject Mary Jo White’s nomination. The lone dissenter in the Committee’s 21-1 vote was Senator Sherrod Brown, who stated:

“At a time when our Attorney General says that the biggest Wall Street banks are in many ways above the law and the SEC is blocking shareholders’ efforts to break up the banks that they own, we need regulators who will fight every day for taxpayers, Main Street investors, and retirees. But too often we have seen public servants who settle for the status quo, instead of demanding accountability.

“I don’t question Mary Jo White’s integrity or skill as an attorney. But I do question Washington’s long-held bias towards Wall Street and its inability to find watchdogs outside of the very industry that they are meant to police. Mary Jo White will have plenty of opportunities to prove me wrong. I hope she will.”

Mary Jo White did not prove Senator Brown wrong. During her tenure, the long-awaited Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) failed to get up and running – allowing all of those high frequency traders and Dark Pools on Wall Street to continue to loot the investing public with impunity. White also allowed the big banks to continue their jaded practice of engaging in capital relief trades as her former law firm gushed that the deals could be “effective use of balance sheet capital as banking organizations adjust to the post-crisis regulatory paradigm.”

During White’s tenure, a 25-year veteran trial lawyer at the SEC, James Kidney, retired in March 2014. At his retirement party, he delivered a scathing critique of SEC management. Kidney said that “On the rare occasions when Enforcement does go to the penthouse, good manners are paramount. Tough enforcement – risky enforcement – is subject to extensive negotiation and weakening.” White brought along her Enforcement Chief at the SEC, Andrew Ceresney, from Debevoise & Plimpton. He also returned to the law firm.

By June of 2015, White’s management of the SEC was so problematic that Senator Elizabeth Warren sent her a harsh 13-page critique of her performance. Warren called out White’s failure to finalize rules requiring disclosure of the ratio of CEO pay to the median worker; her continuing use of waivers for companies that violate securities law; the SEC’s continued practice of settling the vast majority of cases without requiring meaningful admissions of guilt; and White’s repeated recusals from investigations because of her prior employment and her husband’s current employment at law firms representing Wall Street.

In February 2015, the New York Times reported that the conflicts of White and her husband had resulted in her recusing herself “from more than four dozen enforcement investigations.” Instead of an SEC Chair, that sounds like a part-time worker.

Given this demoralizing experience with the gold-plated Washington-Wall Street revolving door, one would have expected that President Trump, the man promising to drain the swamp in Washington, to have come up with a better plan for stewardship of the SEC. Instead, Trump’s doubling down. His nominee for SEC Chair is Jay Clayton, a law partner at Sullivan & Cromwell, which has represented Goldman Sachs since the late 1800s. On top of that, Clayton’s wife is a Vice President of (wait for it) Goldman Sachs.

Until there is meaningful legislative reform of political campaign financing and revolving door appointments, Americans will continue to be relegated to the status of dumb tourist in their own country. (See related articles below.)

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