Sen. Elizabeth Warren asked the Justice Department Thursday for a review of the decisions not to charge any financial executives for crimes in the 2008 crisis, keeping up the pressure eight years after the fact.
In a letter sent Thursdays, the liberal Massachusetts senator, known for her advocacy of tighter rules on Wall Street, called on the Justice Department’s inspector general to investigate why the agency didn’t prosecute any of the individuals or banks referred to it by crisis investigators.
The lack of prosecutions “represents an abysmal failure,” Warren wrote. “It means that key companies and individuals that were responsible for the financial crisis and were the cause of substantial hardship for millions of Americans faced no criminal charges. This failure is outrageous and baffling, and it requires an explanation.”
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, established to determine the causes of the crisis, referred nine people and 14 companies to the Department of Justice, Warren noted.
Citing FBI Director James Comey’s decision to release records about the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state, Warren called on the FBI to release materials related to its probes of financial firms and its prosecutorial decisions relating to those cases.
Warren’s request, sent on the anniversary of the fall of the investment bank Lehman Bros., is just the latest in her attempts to sway the Justice Department and regulators toward prosecutions of individuals.
Liberals criticized former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder for the lack of such prosecutions on his watch. Before he left office in 2015, Holder announced a deadline for his staff to come up with prosecutions. He left office, however, without action on any.
Warren’s staff combed through Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission documents that were released earlier this year to find instances in which the commission called for prosecutions.
Among the nine executives recommended for prosecution were some of the biggest names in finance, including top executives at Fannie Mae, Citigroup, AIG and Merrill Lynch.
One of the names referred to in particular was former Citigroup Chairman Robert Rubin, President Bill Clinton’s treasury secretary.
