VITTER: HOLDUP ON HOLDER REPLACEMENT LORETTA LYNCH OVER HSBC PERSECUTION

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Breitbart:

Republicans in the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee have stalled the nomination of U.S. attorney Loretta Lynch to replace Eric Holder as President Barack Obama’s Attorney General, and Sen. David Vitter (R-LA)—a member of the committee—says it’s because of her role in not bringing criminal charges in a white collar crime scandal.

 

In December 2012, ABC News’s Brian Ross, Matthew Mosk and Carlos Boettcher reported that HSBC Bank “will avoid a potentially crippling criminal prosecution for its role in moving cash for known terror groups, Mexican drug cartels, and rogue governments such as Iran” because Justice Department officials instead agreed to assess a $2 billion settlement against the bank.

 

Lynch, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, is quoted in that article as saying HSBC didn’t act on”numerous red flags and warnings about the money laundering risks.”

 

HSBC, she said, “routinely did business with entities on the U.S. sanctions list” adding that the bank engaged in “evading U.S. prohibitions on such transactions by disguising the source of the funds so the payments would go through.”

 

Nonetheless, nobody went to prison or even faced a criminal trial in the money laundering case, due to Lynch’s and others’ efforts. HSBC got off by making a payment to the government.

 

“Announcement of the immense fine was overshadowed Tuesday by efforts to explain why, in one of the clearest cases of criminal money laundering in recent memory, no one would be facing jail time. Criminal conviction on money laundering violations would have also forcibly prevented HSBC from doing business in the United States,” Ross, Mosk and Boettcher wrote.

 

Vitter, a hardline conservative, said in his statement on Thursday that this is very troubling and that members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the full Senate, need to know everything that happened with HSBC’s case and Lynch’s role in all of it before they can vote on her nomination.

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Not so fast, Ms. Lynch...