Elizabeth Warren EMBARRASSES Bank Regulators At First Hearing

warren bank hearing | Warren questioned top regulators from the alphabet soup that is the nation's financial regulatory structure: the FDIC, SEC, OCC, CFPB, CFTC, Fed and Treasury. Elizabeth Warren is the truth!!!! show your support http://www.warren.senate.gov/

The Democratic senator from Massachusetts had a straightforward question for them: When was the last time you took a Wall Street bank to trial? It was a harder question than it seemed.

"We do not have to bring people to trial," Thomas Curry, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, assured Warren, declaring that his agency had secured a large number of "consent orders," or settlements.

"I appreciate that you say you don't have to bring them to trial. My question is, when did you bring them to trial?" she responded.

"We have not had to do it as a practical matter to achieve our supervisory goals," Curry offered.

Warner turned to Elisse Walter, chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who said that the agency weighs how much it can extract from a bank without taking it to court against the cost of going to trial.

"I appreciate that. That's what everybody does," said Warren, a former Harvard law professor. "Can you identify the last time when you took the Wall Street banks to trial?"

"I will have to get back to you with specific information," Walter said as the audience tittered.

"There are district attorneys and United States attorneys out there every day squeezing ordinary citizens on sometimes very thin grounds and taking them to trial in order to make an example, as they put it. I'm really concerned that 'too big to fail' has become 'too big for trial,'" Warren said.

A Warren constituent, open-Internet activist Aaron Swartz, recently committed suicide after being hounded by federal prosecutors who reportedly said they wanted to "make an example" of him. Warren had met and said she admired Swartz and, after he died, expressed her concern by attending his memorial in Washington.

The financial regulators can blame, at least in part, Wall Street lobbyists (along with outgoing Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Senate Republicans) for their embarrassing turn at the hearing. Warren would have been on the panel herself representing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, instead of a sitting senator, if her nomination to head the agency hadn't been thwarted in 2011.

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[terryliciareed]

WARREN FOR PRESIDENT! 

[TheYeomanDroid]

Elizabeth Warren is one of the few people who understand that Americans are getting raped by banks and retailers.

[LeeeroyJenkems]

you either believe it's too complicated or it's too simple

[dtmzero]

Funny... When I last mentioned how screwed up our justice system is to someone, the first thing he mentioned was OJ Simpson although Warren would have been spot on with what I was talking. People are so caught up with Casey Anthony and the Kardashians to the point they are oblivious to the largest forms of injustice.

[SRT480]

she asked a simple question and no one in the room either wants to answer it or knows the answer.

[29render]

send them to jail you paid for traitors

[29render]

shut your face you fucking troll...

[KamLC]

You're right, because everyone in the US can settle all their crimes out of court, like the banks can.... O wait.

[drglobalhealth]

Your name says it all....

[frostyproof]

She is such a moron. She really shows her lack of understanding of the judicial process

[Patrick Ainsworth]

Warren for President 2016!

[Gary Schultz]

Screw the fines - I want some of these bankers thrown in the slammer!