Former Goldman Sachs COO wants to know "Who broke the law?"

Gary Cohn, former Goldman Sachs COO, is puzzled.
For some bizarre reason some people are under the impression that Wall Street banks may have broke some laws.

“Who broke the law? I just want to know who you think broke the law,” Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs GS, -0.20% president who served till March as President Donald Trump’s director of the National Economic Council, said in response to a question from Reuters reporter Gina Chon about the role of banks during the global economic crisis that began in earnest with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in Sept. 15, 2008.
...
“I thought the U.S. criminal system worked [in such a way] that you had to break a law,” Cohn told Reuters’ Chon. “I didn’t think you could be indicted on a charge of just because someone didn’t like what you did.”

It's understandable that Cohn might have missed a minor event that happened while he was COO in 2016.

Investment banking giant Goldman Sachs has agreed to a list of “facts” in addition to paying $5.1 billion to settle a lawsuit related to its handling of mortgage-backed securities leading up to the 2007 financial crisis, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Monday.
...
“This resolution holds Goldman Sachs accountable for its serious misconduct in falsely assuring investors that securities it sold were backed by sound mortgages, when it knew that they were full of mortgages that were likely to fail,” said Acting Associate Attorney General Stuart F. Delery in a statement.

As part of the settlement, New York-based Goldman agreed to a list of facts put together by the DoJ that stated Goldman had misled investors about the mortgage-backed securities while knowing that the repackaged loans were indeed riskier than what they had told investors.

If I was fined $5 Billion and forced to admit to committing fraud I would remember it, but Cohn must have been doing something else that day.
Cohn also forgot about this.

Five of the world's largest banks have plead guilty to federal charges including manipulating the global foreign exchange market and rigging a benchmark interest rate that affects the cost of credit card, vehicle and other loans.

Citicorp (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Barclays (BCS) and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) agreed to pay more than $5 billion for conspiring to fix the price of U.S. dollars and euros, the Justice Department said Wednesday. The main banking unit of UBS Group plead guilty to charges tied to interest-rate manipulation.

Maybe Cohn thinks "plead guilty" means something different.

Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

the useless journalist doing the interview was totally unprepared for a denial. Had zero facts. My list of who and what sucks most keeps growing and growing...

up
0 users have voted.

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Amanda Matthews's picture

@dkmich
a Wall Street nabob should be simple.

No matter what the topic, they’re going to lie and deflect. Any and everything but tell the truth.

up
0 users have voted.

I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

WindDancer13's picture

No human person was indicted. No human person went to jail. It was those brick, stone and stucco buildings called banks that pleaded to fraud and got fined. Those nasty buildings!

up
0 users have voted.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

@WindDancer13

up
0 users have voted.
Pricknick's picture

It's my fault that I voted green in 2016, which led to me to voting for trump, therefore hildabeast lost.
I'll take this one too.
It's my fault.

What's not to love?

up
0 users have voted.

Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

to help craft Trump's big tax cut bill.

up
0 users have voted.

chuck utzman

TULSI 2020

OzoneTom's picture

@chuckutzman
One cannot be any more Democrat than that!

up
0 users have voted.
lotlizard's picture

How dare you question Wall Street, young lady? Have you no decency?

up
0 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@lotlizard

Isn't that what Jaimie Dimon said when he testified to congress? "I'm doing Gawd's work. Besides I needed a boat that went with my yacht."

IMG_2372_1.JPG

up
0 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

lotlizard's picture

@snoopydawg  
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=blankfein+god%27s+work&ia=web

up
0 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@lotlizard

Thanks for the correction. Kinda hard to keep track of the sleazeballs' names since there are so many of them. Just hope that there's a karmic storm brewing.

up
0 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

karl pearson's picture

@snoopydawg There's definitely a bad moon rising out there.

up
0 users have voted.
divineorder's picture

Elizabeth Warren on Cohn.

Green Economics

up
0 users have voted.

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

From Matt Stoller

https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/1052940368789065729

How many articles showing that the Trump family is a result of non-enforcement of white collar crime laws do we need to understand that enforcing white collar crime laws is essential for democracy?

up
0 users have voted.