Before he testified yesterday, Democratic former governor and senator of New Jersey Jon Corzine took an oath that the testimony he was about to present was “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you god.” But according to a witness on the following panel, Corzine broke that oath.
Specifically, Corzine testified: “Several of the questions last week concerned whether I was aware of any money that belonged to customers being used improperly. I tried to answer those questions to the best of my ability. But I want to be clear. I never gave any instruction to misuse customer funds, I never intended anyone at MF Global to misuse customer funds.”
But later in the afternoon, Terrence A. Duffy, the chief executive of CME Group, testified that a senior female executive of MF Global told an auditor that Corzine was aware of a $175 million loan of customer money to a European affiliate of MF Global:
A CME auditor also participated in a phone call with senior MF Global employees wherein one employee indicated that Mr. Corzine knew about the loans that had been made from the customer segregated accounts. CME Group has provided this information, the names of these individuals to the DOJ and CFTC who are investigating these matters. Transfers of customer funds for the benefit of the firm constitute serious violations of our rules and of the Commodity Exchange Act.
The misuse of client funds has wreaked havoc on farms across rural America. Hundreds of farmers depended on MF Global to manage financial risk through futures markets. Now their money is gone. Mike Mouw, co-owner of Mouw’s Feed and Grain Inc. in Minnesota, told the Associated Press: “This thing should not be taken lightly by anybody. This has a far greater trickle-down than people realize.” Mouw estimates that he lost $250,000 to Corzine’s bad bets.
Corzine has raised over $500,000 for President Obama and Obama has claimed Corzine helped him design the administration’s $814 billion stimulus package. In 2008, Obama called Corzine ‘our Wall Street guy’ at a meeting of Democratic governors in Chicago.
