Feds Ready to Prosecute in Financial Meltdown

It might finally be time to pay for a handful of Wall Streeters, as the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission prepares to name names for possible prosecution, insiders tell the Huffington Post. The panel, which will release three separate reports on Thursday, is turning several cases over to state and federal authorities, who may prosecute. It’s a leap forward in the US response to the financial crisis, say people involved.

Despite a public furor, hardly anyone who played a role in the roots of the financial crisis has paid a legal price, HuffPo notes. The panel’s latest efforts could change that, as the Justice Department and state attorneys general determine whether to seek criminal or civil charges against those referred to them. Some had complained that the panel was no more than political theater; but the referrals could quench, in Timothy Geithner’s words, Americans’ “very deep public desire for Old Testament justice,” writes Shahien Nasiripour.
(More Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission stories.)