Biden DOJ 'Bending Over Backwards' to Protect Corporate Criminals: Report
"If you steal a penny in America, you are a criminal. If you steal millions, you are a multinational corporation."
Cartoon by Mark Taylor / DeMOCKracy.ink
By Jake Johnson
Common Dreams (10/30/23)
An analysis released Monday shows that the Biden Justice Department prosecuted just 99 corporate offenders last year, despite pledging to crack down on white-collar crime following years of lax enforcement during former President Donald Trump's White House term.
Corporate prosecutions have declined sharply since 2000, a trend that President Joe Biden has failed to reverse, the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen observed in a new report.
"A society that punishes the crimes of the poor while permitting the crimes of the powerful is not a just society."
During Biden's first year in office, corporate prosecutions fell to 90, just below the 94 that the Trump administration recorded in 2020 and far below the 304 prosecutions in 2000.
The slight rise to 99 prosecutions in 2022—the fifth-lowest on record—matches the second-lowest number of corporate prosecutions during Trump's four years in the White House.
"The Biden Justice Department's light-touch approach to enforcement encourages corporate scofflaws to push the limits of what's legally allowed to maximize their profits—risking our health and safety, our environment, our finances, and our communities," Rick Claypool, a research director for Public Citizen and author of the new report, said in a statement.
"The Justice Department is still bending over backwards to protect corporate offenders from the consequences of their lawbreaking, and it's creating ideal conditions for the next corporate catastrophe…”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/biden-doj-corporate-crime
*****
We Are Ruled By Sociopaths & Morons
By Caitlan Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter Substack (10/31/23)
The response to the Gaza crisis from western leaders and media outlets and celebrities shows very clearly that we really are led by the least among us. The least wise. The least intelligent. The least compassionate. The least insightful. We are ruled by sociopaths and morons. …
Link to column and audio…
