I'm floored that Attorney General Eric Holder was willing to take a private meeting with JPMorgan Chase CEO Jaimie Dimon while the bank is under criminal investigation and negotiating an enormous civil (and possibly criminal) settlement. I can't recall something like this meeting happening before. There's not anything illegal about such a meeting, but the optics are really bad and underscore the privileged position of the too-big-to-fail banks.
Yes, perhaps the AG should have some level of involvement in a multi-billion dollar settlement, but I would be quite surprised if he was very hands on with it, and meeting personally with Dimon certainly adds a explicit political flavor to the settlement discussions. And it shows the special solicitious treatment and access that Dimon and JPM and other too-big-to-fail banks receive in DC.
Who else is able to call up the AG and just get a meeting like that when their firm is under criminal investigation? Do other citizens get talk things through mano-a-mano with the AG himself? That Dimon even thought to initiate direct contact with Holder suggests that he has no sense of his place in society–or perhaps that he in fact does. Bottom line is that Dimon (and JPM) shouldn't get any more special treatment than any other citizen, but it sure looks like he did.
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2 responses to “Is This Normal? Can I Get a Meeting with the Attorney General?”
Yes, at this point it is normal.
No, you can’t get a meeting with Eric Holder on such notice. Only a member of the banker/wallstreet/coroporate elite has such rapid access.
Alas, you’re just a smart guy that writes. Not nearly enough pluck.
Do you know why someone at JPM redacted this exchange with Dimon in 2009 (supposedly going to shareholders worldwide at the annual shareholder’s meeting)?
Richard Davet
2009 JPM Shareholder’s meeting
Exchange with James Dimon CEO and Chairman
As you know, for years, the Bank has been and continues to be major players in its mortgage business in what has come to be known as the “Government Sponsored Enterprise (GSE) Business Model”.
In September of 2008, Treasury Secretary Paulson declared that, and I quote, “these enterprises pose a systemic risk”.
Your mortgage business goes 90%+ to Fannie Mae on a daily basis.
Much has been written about the GSE flawed business model, including a Wall Street op-ed by George Soros which calls the models “hopelessly conflicted” and “it simply doesn’t work”.
? 1, When do you and the Board intend to disclose to shareholders the consequences of the Bank’s vigorous involvement with this fatally flawed business model?
? 2 Isn’t this business a little like your running a house of ill repute while knowing that all your ladies have aids and what are you doing to your client base?
? 3, What would you say to the skeptics that are out there that think that all players involved with the GSE Business Model are engaged in a simple criminal scheme, albeit of a dimension that we have never seen before, that a prosecutor would call “theft by deception” with the American taxpayer as the victim?