I don’t get it. Florida’s Attorney General is supposed to protect consumers and enforce consumer protection laws. And I thought the prosecutors working for the Florida Attorney General are ‘sposed to be pursuing violators with all the passion, intensity and determination that we expect of dedicated advocates in this (formerly) adversarial process called white collar law enforcement.
In years past (when regulators regulated and when law enforcement actually cared about prosecuting white collar crimes) one Attorney General (Ferdinand Pecora) was famously called, “The Hellhound of Wall Street”. He earned that moniker because he did exactly what he was ‘sposed to do…he borrowed deep into the targets of his investigations, he treated white collar crimes as……(GASP!) crimes.
But that ain’t the state of affairs in this country today. Today, the banksters, the Wall Street types, the fraudclosure mills and any of the corporations that, through greed and avarice and fraud and arrogance, have destroyed this country don’t just walk free, they get shuttled around from executive suite to private jet in fine leather while law enforcement, regulators, legislators and anyone in any position of power walk behind them fanning them with palm fronds and dropping rose petals in front of them. (More caviar Mr. Blankenfeld?)
Well, two investigators from Florida’s Attorney General’s Office didn’t get that memo. They apparently had the delusional notion that they were supposed to be tough on (alleged) wrongdoing. June Clarkson and Theresa Edwards thought their job was to enforce consumer protection laws, protect the citizens of the State of Florida and fight for voters and citizens. I’m not sure if they had the opportunity to rise to the level of “hellhounds”, but apparently they were at the very least nipping and yapping to a level that made a few targets of investigations uncomfortable….and that discomfort apparently caused worry for Florida’s Attorney General who wrote:
“I can finally go to sleep now and quit worrying about how these women will attempt to destroy me tomorrow thanks to you,” Bondi wrote.
In another exchange about a statement to a newspaper, Bondi worries that it will lead readers to believe she knew more about the decision than she did.
“It sounds like I was briefed on the facts of the firing in advance, which is absolutely not the case,” she wrote. “I was notified by a two-minute phone call and did not even know the details, nor should I have needed to know.”
This folks is the state of affairs in this state……read on for more.
