Category Archives: Uncategorized

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 3, 2022 ~ Playing out in a federal courtroom in Chicago have been JPMorgan traders telling a jury that it was standard operating procedure at the bank to rig precious metals markets in order to make huge profits for their trading desk. That case is U.S. v. Smith in the Northern District Court in Chicago. (Case number 1:19-cr-00669.) Now there may be more explosive revelations spilling out against JPMorgan Chase in the Southern District Court in Manhattan beginning this fall. That case is Shaquala Williams v JPMorgan Chase. (Case number 1:21-cv-0932.) Last week, Judge Jed Rakoff, who is overseeing the Williams case, ruled that JPMorgan’s motion for dismissal would not prevail on Williams’ claim for retaliatory dismissal and ruled that a jury trial would begin on November 7. (Judge Rakoff did dismiss the Williams’ claim that the bank’s actions had adversely affected a job offer.) … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 2, 2022 ~ Ken Klukowski is making a lot of people in the Charles Koch network of political operatives very nervous. According to a CNN report last Thursday, Klukowski “is cooperating in the DOJ’s January 6 criminal investigation, after investigators searched and copied his electronic records several weeks ago.” Those electronic records could open a lot of secrets that the Charles Koch network has kept behind a dark curtain for far too long. Klukowski arrived at the U.S. Department of Justice just 35 days before Trump’s term ended. According to the January 6 House Select Committee, Klukowski was “parachuted” into the Justice Department to help an environmental attorney there, Jeffrey Clark, prepare a letter to state officials which falsely claimed that the Justice Department had “identified significant concerns” about the vote totals in those states and the states should consider sending “a separate slate … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 1, 2022 ~ Last Thursday, during a Senate Banking Committee hearing, Senator Elizabeth Warren apparently grabbed the attention of federal regulators when she stated that Voyager, the crypto platform that filed for bankruptcy protection in early July, was promoting itself as being FDIC-insured. FDIC stands for Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and is the federal agency that oversees federal deposit insurance for the nation’s regulated banks and savings associations. Crypto trading platforms and their lending operations are not federally regulated; they are frequently tied to criminal activity; they are increasingly going bust and/or filing for bankruptcy protection and locking customers out of making withdrawals of their liquid funds and/or their crypto. Letting crypto get anywhere near a federally-insured bank would undermine public confidence in FDIC-insurance and undermine public confidence in the safety and soundness of all federally-insured banks in the U.S. And yet, federal bank … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 29, 2022 ~ What do you get when you mix federally-insured banks with Wall Street trading casinos? You get the potential for catastrophic risks for the U.S. taxpayer and astronomical riches for the CEOs of the banks and the hedge fund titans they serve. Why is this Faustian bargain tolerated by Washington lawmakers – especially after the greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression in 2008? Because the Wall Street fat cats throw a lot of money into the political campaigns of members of Congress, ensuring that no matter how many times these Frankenbanks make outrageous blunders involving billions of dollars, Congress will conduct a superficial investigation and move on. Below we examine outrageous money blunders by Barclays, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley – all of which have the earmarks of the brand of money incompetence as George Bailey’s Uncle Billy in Frank … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 28, 2022 ~ The Senate Banking Committee will hear today from two witnesses at its hearing titled: “Protecting Investors and Savers: Understanding Scams and Risks in Crypto and Securities Markets.” On tap will be Melanie Senter Lubin, the Commissioner of the Maryland Securities Division, who also serves as President of the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA), a group that represents state and provincial securities regulators in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Also giving testimony will be Gerri Walsh, the President of FINRA Investor Education Foundation and Senior Vice President of FINRA Investor Education. FINRA is the self-regulatory body that oversees Wall Street’s broker dealers and licensed traders. It also runs the discredited private justice system for Wall Street firms called mandatory arbitration. In the written testimony that Lubin provided to the Senate Banking Committee, she reveals that surveys conducted by NASAA for … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 27, 2022 ~ Mainstream media has been abuzz over the past two days that Marc Short, the Chief of Staff to former Vice President Mike Pence, has testified under subpoena before a grand jury convened by the U.S. Department of Justice, which has now broadened its investigation of the January 6 attack on the Capitol to the masterminds. But is that really the headline? We think the real headline is that Marc Short was previously an executive at the fossil fuels conglomerate Koch Industries, a private company run by billionaire Charles Koch who has been setting up political front groups for four decades. Short went on to become President of a Koch-related dark money group called Freedom Partners from 2011 to 2016. Freedom Partners plowed hundreds of millions of dollars into political operations in an effort to put fossil fuel friendly pawns in Congress … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 26, 2022 ~ The long-tenured Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, likes to use the phrase “fortress balance sheet,” when talking about his bank to Congress or shareholders. But the data stored at its federal regulators show that the bank is, by far, the most systemically dangerous bank in the United States. And, despite its high risk profile, neither Congress nor federal regulators have restricted its growth. Its assets have soared by 65 percent since the end of 2016 and stood at $3.95 trillion as of March 31, making it the largest bank in the United States. Making this situation even more dangerous, the bank has admitted to five criminal felony counts over the past eight years and a multitude of civil crimes and multi-billion dollar fines — all during the tenure of Dimon. Neither Congress nor federal regulators nor the Justice Department … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 25, 2022 ~ His name is Rick Fleming and there is a very good chance that you’ve never heard of him. Now, there’s a very good chance that you’ll never see the reports that he meticulously compiled twice a year over the past eight years that he served in the role of Investor Advocate on behalf of retail investors at the Securities and Exchange Commission. If you click on this SEC link where his reports are supposed to be housed, you’ll find that the majority of his reports since 2019 result in an “Oops! Page Not Found” message. The role of Investor Advocate at the SEC was created under the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation of 2010 following the greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression, which resulted from unparalleled corruption on Wall Street and inept federal oversight. The Dodd-Frank legislation clearly intended for the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 22, 2022 ~ The Inspectors General of federal agencies are supposed to be the first line of defense against corruption within that agency. Increasingly, they have become part of the problem of corruption, coverups and cronyism. The January 6 House Select Committee has now stumbled upon this problem in a big way. Hopefully, it will lead to meaningful legislative reform of a seriously broken system of “watchdogs” that increasingly operate as lapdogs. According to a letter sent by Ronald L. Rowe, Assistant Director of the Secret Service, to the January 6 House Select Committee on Tuesday of this week, the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the parent agency of the Secret Service, first requested text messages from the Secret Service more than a year ago. The request covered a full month of text messages prior to and including the January … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 21, 2022 ~ The official government website for the Secret Service has a bizarre and alarming bio for Anthony (Tony) Ornato, the Secret Service agent who was allowed by his superiors to become Assistant to President Donald Trump and Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations at the White House. The bio notes that Ornato “was detailed from the Secret Service” to assume these highly political roles. Because the Secret Service provides protective services to members of both political parties, it has historically been seen as a law enforcement agency that should studiously avoid any appearance of political bias. Ornato not only served under one of the most politically-toxic Presidents in U.S. history, whom tens of millions of Americans believe attempted to overthrow the U.S. government, but Ornato was allowed to return to the Secret Service and become Assistant Director of the Office of Training. … Continue reading →