Matt Taibbi Totally Went Off On Attorney General Eric Holder For Deciding Not To Prosecute Goldman Sachs

Linette Lopez | Aug. 15, 2012, 2:29 PM








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We weren't shocked when we heard the Justice Department was not going to pursue criminal charges against Goldman Sachs for offenses reported in a 2011 Senate investigation that basically blamed Goldman for the financial crisis. And we definitely weren't mad — what's the point? Plus, being mad is not our job. That job belongs to Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi.
And, predictably, he was livid enough for all of us.
He said that this Justice Department decision proved that Attorney General Eric Holder has no balls, and crafted a litany of similes and metaphors to illustrate not only Holder's ineptitude, but the dastardly deeds Goldman was getting away with.
Here are our favorite gems (from Rolling Stone):

  • ...they’ll (The Justice Department) take on somebody like Raj Rajaratnam, who stacked his illegal insider trades so brazenly and carelessly that his case almost reads like a finance version of Jeff Dahmer tripping over bodies in his Milwaukee apartment...Basically, if someone backs a dump truck up to the DOJ and unloads the entire case, gift-wrapped, a contrite and confessing criminal included, a guy like Eric Holder might, after much agonizing deliberation, decide to prosecute.
  • You know that look a dog gives you when you show it something confusing, like an electric razor or a lawn sprinkler? That’s the look federal prosecutors give when companies like Goldman wave their attorneys’ sanctifying opinions at them.
  • You can almost feel the relief emanating from Washington when these prosecutors decide against matching wits with the wizened 60 year-old legal Sith Lords from Harvard and Yale who’ve seen everything, know every judge by his or her first name, and in a trial would be basically bringing absolutely everything a lawyer can bring to the table, except consciences of course.
  • ...the Holders of the world do not want to be creative when the targets are politically influential rich people. Instead, they use their creativity against Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, immigrant housekeepers, and guys who knock over liquor stores. They like to flex muscles against bank robbers, celebrity tax evaders (we can’t have Wesley Snipes on the loose!), truck hijackers, and drug dealers. As Gene Wilder would say, "You know – morons."
  • Holder’s non-decision on Goldman is more than unsurprising. It amounts to an official announcement that the government is no longer in the business of prosecuting smart criminals. It’s pathetic. The one thing you pay any lawyer to have is balls, and our nation’s top attorney has none.

See, we told you he was mad.
Read the whole piece from Rolling Stone here>