The U.S. attorney general recently took pains to characterize an auto manufacturer’s alleged “defrauding the public” as not just a crime (a “crime,” by the way, recently invented by prosecutors rather than passed by the legislature), but as a “reprehensible” course of conduct. The crime the company had to admit, per the Justice Department: insufficient attention to what prosecutors — not auto-safety regulators — decided was a product defect related to automobile accelerators. Thousands of cars were voluntarily recalled to fix what has not even been established conclusively as a defect, let alone one that caused accidents. “Reprehensible.” Really?
Likewise, Associate Attorney General Tony West touts great prosecutorial success in using a civil statute designed to protect banks, and merely alleging — not proving — predicate crimes, to shake down financial institutions for huge penalties. The predicate crime alleged? Selling securities derived from toxic mortgages — mortgages that were written because government policies demanded a garage for every car, even if it meant shelling out mortgage money to clearly underqualified borrowers.
