Search Results for: jay clayton 8 out of 10

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 18, 2017 On Saturday, the news broke that Kory Langhofer, counsel to Donald Trump’s transition team known as Trump for America, Inc. (TFA), had sent a 7-page letter to House and Senate Committees stating that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office had improperly received “tens of thousands of emails” from the General Services Administration (GSA), a Federal agency, that had been sent or received by members of Trump’s transition team. Both the GSA and Mueller’s spokesmen denied that there had been anything improper about the turnover of the emails. Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, said that “When we have obtained emails in the course of our ongoing criminal investigation, we have secured either the account owner’s consent or appropriate criminal process.” Lenny Loewentritt, a veteran lawyer for the GSA told Buzzfeed that transition team members were told by the GSA that materials “would … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 27, 2017 Donald Trump’s pick for Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Jay Clayton, had good reason to be nervous yesterday morning as he prepared to testify before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee. The ranking member of that Committee, Senator Sherrod Brown, had previously made his feelings known about Clayton’s fitness to serve as Wall Street’s top cop prior to Clayton’s Senate confirmation. Brown had stated: “It’s hard to see how an attorney who’s spent his career helping Wall Street beat the rap will keep President-elect Trump’s promise to stop big banks and hedge funds from ‘getting away with murder.’ I look forward to hearing how Mr. Clayton will protect retirees and savers from being exploited, demand real accountability from the financial institutions the SEC oversees, and work to prevent another financial crisis.” Wall Street On Parade did further investigation of Clayton … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 8, 2017 Yesterday the Senate Banking Committee announced that the confirmation hearing for Trump’s nominee to Chair the Securities and Exchange Commission, Jay Clayton, will be held on March 23. Expect fireworks in the hearing from Democrats who are mad as hell at the myriad conflicts of this nominee. When Clayton’s name was first announced by the Trump camp, Senator Sherrod Brown, the Democrat’s ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, sent out a press release with this statement: “It’s hard to see how an attorney who’s spent his career helping Wall Street beat the rap will keep President-elect Trump’s promise to stop big banks and hedge funds from ‘getting away with murder.’ I look forward to hearing how Mr. Clayton will protect retirees and savers from being exploited, demand real accountability from the financial institutions the SEC oversees, and work to prevent … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 1, 2017 In President Trump’s speech last evening to a joint session of Congress, he described his plan to rebuild America’s crumbling infrastructure as follows: “To launch our national rebuilding, I will be asking the Congress to approve legislation that produces a $1 trillion investment in the infrastructure of the United States — financed through both public and private capital — creating millions of new jobs.” Financed through “both public and private capital” sounds a lot like a public-private partnership.  Here’s how those hybrid creatures have worked out so far for the American people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were, effectively, public-private partnerships. (The government preferred to call them “Government Sponsored Enterprises” or GSEs.) Each company traded on the New York Stock Exchange and each company had private shareholders. Because Fannie and Freddie had a line of credit from the U.S. Treasury and … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 22, 2017 President Trump’s nominee to head the Securities and Exchange Commission, Walter J. (Jay) Clayton, a law partner at Sullivan & Cromwell, has represented 8 of the 10 largest Wall Street banks as recently as within the last three years. Clayton’s current resume at his law firm is somewhat misleading. It lists under “Representative Engagements” in “Capital Markets/Leveraged Finance” the following: Initial public offering of $25 billion by Alibaba Group Holding Limited; Initial public offering of $190 million by Moelis & Company; Initial public offering of $2.375 billion by Ally Financial. All three of the above IPOs occurred in 2014 – less than three years ago. A quick check of the prospectuses for the IPOs that were filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows that Clayton, as a law partner at Sullivan & Cromwell, was representing the underwriters in the offering, which include the largest … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 18, 2017 Sometimes all it takes to win a war is a rallying cry. That cry started in the bowels of Wall Street on September 17, 2011 with the takeover of Zuccotti Park by grassroots protesters calling themselves Occupy Wall Street. The thunder clap from that movement, “we are the 99 percent,” reverberated around the world. Occupy focused the public’s attention on the insidious wealth transfer system that has been institutionalized by Wall Street on behalf of the 1 percent – a system which has minted dozens of billionaires and thousands of multi-millionaires while collapsing the U.S. economy from 2008 to 2010 and leaving millions of Americans homeless and jobless. (See our past coverage of Occupy in related articles below.) Yesterday, green shoots from the Occupy movement sprouted in a light falling rain outside the headquarters of Goldman Sachs at 200 West Street … Continue reading →