Rakoff Rakes Off SEC/CitiBank's Suit, Vest and Pants

Judge Rakoff Pulls SEC/CitiBank Case Off the Rack

by Winsip Custer CPW News Service

     As Wall Street occupiers cry for reforms of the nations financial markets, NY Judge Jed Rakoff strikes down an out of court settlement between the SEC and CitiBank.  The $285 million settlement which if paid by CitiBank would have eliminated any requirement to make the facts of the case known is what was at issue at a time when disgruntled Americans are ready to reach for their pitchforks.

     “In much of the world, propaganda reigns, and truth is confined to secretive, fearful whispers. Even in our nation, apologists for suppressing or obscuring the truth may always be found,” Rakoff wrote. “But the SEC, of all agencies, has a duty, inherent in its statutory mission, to see that the truth emerges; and if it fails to do so, this court must not, in the name of deference or convenience, grant judicial enforcement to the agency’s contrivances…. for otherwise, the court becomes a mere handmaiden to a settlement privately negotiated on the basis of unknown facts, while the public is deprived of ever knowing the truth in a matter of obvious public importance.”

     In September 2009, Rakoff  pulled the Bank of American/SEC settlement off the same rack as if to say that there will be no “off the rack suits in something as intricately woven as a U.S. bank and SEC wrong-doing settlement.”  Rakoff wants the public to see more of the stitches and contours that define the American financial tailoring style.
     It was Bank of America’s CEO, Ken Lewis, who declined to accept the Paulson bailout money just after the 2008 election because Lewis was sitting over the most financially viable bank in the country at the time.  Instead, Lewis was forced to accept the money and then purchase Merrill Lynch, formerly Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith.  The Pierce name links to U.S. President Franklin Pierce and ancestor of Barbara Pierce Bush.  Bank of America was forced to use its bail out money to bail out Merrill Lynch from its lumbering sub-prime loans much the same way as the U.S. taxpayers soverign money was used to bail out the S&L’s which included Silverado Savings on whose board was GHWB and Barbara’s son, Neil Bush.
     “What makes this hidden disgorgement like the green puke spewed projectile-like from the spinning head of the obsessed girl in the Exorcist is that the priest, in this case the SEC, and parishoner, in this case CitiBank, are cohorts in cahoots to save face....thus costing those wronged any serious chance at recompense,” said Wishman T. Dice of the Wall Street consulting firm of Dice, Dice and Ruletts, LLC who noted CitiBank's long standing insider relationship with the U.S. government's leading power brokers.  Dice cited a CitiBank timeline from the Clinton to the George W. Bush administrations that was developed by former Los Angeles police officer and investigator Michael Ruppert showing CitiBank’s relationship to former CIA Director, John Deutsch:

•  May 10, 1995 - John Deutch sworn in as Director of Central Intelligence Agency.
• May 19, 1995 - The Senate announces that Nora Slatkin is leaving the Department of Defense (Assistant Secretary of the Navy) to join the CIA as Executive Director.
• December 15, 1996 - Deutch resigns as DCI.
• December 17, 1996 - A CIA computer security official visits Deutch's home and discovers thousands of pages of classified documents on unsecured (CIA) Macintosh computers. CIA General Counsel, Tom O'Neil and Nora Slatkin are advised of the breach by Deutsch who is being considered as a director of CitiBank. Slatkin advises DCI Tenet of Deutsch breach.
• December, 1996 - Deutch joins the Board at Citigroup.
• Dec 20 ,1996 - Deutch deletes files from his computers.
• January, 1997 - CIA security officials complain to Slatkin that O'Neil is dragging his feet. Slatkin takes no action in response, except to "hold discussions." Deutch refuses to be interviewed by security staff.
• Summer, 1997 - The CIA security staff completes a report on Deutch which languishes in the security office awaiting action.
• Fall, 1997 - Claiming ignorance of the security office's investigation, DCI Tenet grants Deutch new security clearances.
• October, 1997 - On Deutch's recommendation Slatkin also joins the Board at Citigroup. Her current title - Senior Manger of Government Relations.
• December, 1997 - Because the Justice Department has not been notified, a one-year statute of limitations for the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate Deutch lapses
• March, 1998 - After seven years of service, CIA Inspector General Frederick Porter Hitz, whose “Hitz Report” would have connected the dots to what San Jose Mercury News reporter, Gary Webb, revealed about Iran-Contra and the CIA cocaine connections,  retires to assume the Goldman Sachs Chair on International Intelligence at Princeton University. Hitz later tells The New York Times that he assumed that his successor, Britt Snider, would advise the Department of Justice as to Deutch's possible criminal mishandling of CIA records.  The Hitz Report, while denying Gary Webb's independent findings, was held up by future CIA Director, Porter Johnston Goss, who served the GWB administation and is reported to have been involved in both the Bay of Pigs AKA Operation Zapata and Iran-Contra before becoming CIA Director in 2004.
• April, 1999 - Janet Reno's Justice Department declines to prosecute Deutsch.
• February, 2000 - After a CIA Inspector General's report on Deutch's conduct leaks to the press Janet Reno reopens the investigation. Prosecutor Paul Coffey recommends criminal charges.
• March, 2000 - Slatkin and Hitz contradict Tenet and state that he was much more involved than previously admitted.
• Summer/Fall 2000 - The criminal investigation of Deutch inches ahead in secret. Fears mount that John Ashcroft, as Bush Attorney general, will aggressively pursue criminal charges.
• January 20, 2001 - On his last day in office President Clinton pardons Citibank Director John Deutch.

Dice was asked if this meant that the same chummy arrangement between the SEC and Wall Street wrongdoers cuts across both Republican and Democratic administrations in a one size fits all senario.  "Yea, like a Men's Warehouse off the rack suit," said Dice.  "From the failed S&L's to the Deutsch CitiBank directorship, to the Paulsen bailout they're all wearing the same duds."