PRESS RELEASE
O’Malley Reiterates Call for Glass-Steagall to Des Moines Register
Oct. 4, 2015 (EIRNS)—Presidential candidate and former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley wrote an op-ed published late last week in the Des Moines Register, under the headline “O’Malley: Put more cops on Wall Street beat,” reiterating his call for Glass-Steagall and a criminal prosecution of top Wall Street bankers.
O’Malley wrote that “There are now two standards of justice in the U.S.: one for the wealthy, powerful, and well-connected of Wall Street, and one for the rest of us. Wall Street megabanks—and their executives—have been somehow classified as too big to prosecute and too big to jail in our country. Enough is enough... If you slap a bank robber on the wrist, he’ll just go and rob a bank again. It’s no different if that bank robber is wearing a suit. As it stands now, when laws are broken, Wall Street CEOs and their institutions get off with nothing more than fines paid by shareholders that they can write off as business expenses. No admission of guilt, no one faces jail time, everybody keeps their jobs—back to bonuses as usual.”
“As President,” he continued,
“I will create a standalone division at DOJ to investigate and prosecute economic crimes; require law-breaking banks and their executives to face real consequences instead of just absorbing fines and continuing to break the law; break up the biggest banks; and pass a 21st century Glass-Steagall Act.”
He concluded: “We cannot allow the architects of deregulation back into a position of power. We cannot turn a blind eye to those who have profited from a very close relationship with Wall Street throughout their careers. We cannot elect leaders who believe the size of these banks isn’t a problem, and expect different results. Only once we’ve taken these much needed steps to hold Wall Street accountable can we truly say, ‘CEOs are no longer too big to jail.’ ”
Bloomberg issued a brief wire on the O’Malley op-ed with a link to the full Register article.
