and it's time for what's in your prime interest i'm perry and boring and i am bob english let's get to today's headline. eric holder the u.s. attorney general is cracking down on wall street well according to himself and a he said anybody inflicting damage on our financial markets should not think they're out of the woods well there is a small problem with something called the statute of limitations and it's run out on a substantial number of criminal acts committed both before and after the last financial crisis unfortunately it seems the only people being prosecuted these days are mid-level employees and hedge funds and that would be for insider trading and while that's certainly a crime insider trading did not cause the last financial crisis nor will it cause a future one i discussed this issue with gary geary as you see whistleblower in

just a minute and sam sachs presents the psychopath of wall street culture later in the show and i will dig into the fine print of whistle blowing up and go from daniel ellsberg and the pentagon papers a write up to bradley manning and suddenly since the thirty five years in prison today may serve as you as eight additional years old wow big areas they could have been much worse so perhaps the government is a bit more concerned about the issue than. hypocrisy has reached new heights in india only days ago the prime minister of india announced that there would be no new currency crisis not like the one that happened in one thousand nine hundred one anyway anyway overnight the reserve bank of india basically india's fed announced a new quantitative easing program so welcome to the club india good luck. and here's what's in your prime interest.

i. i. we have been talking about whistleblowers and as promised we have a compelling story of one at the securities and exchange commission in two thousand and five garia geary was senior counsel there he investigated a case involving insider trading at a major hedge fund this would be peak white capital management and after a little digging guess what it became apparent that the soon to be c.e.o. of morgan stanley john mack was involved nomad happened to be a major contributor to george w. bush and mr geary supervisor warned him that mack was untouchable due to his political connections so peak watts attorneys met with as you see director of

enforcement and the result a case would be the first narrowed and then next testimony was delayed so the statute of limitations which we've been talking about for a match eventually ran out and mr geary complained he complained about political clout and this was a big mistake because he was promptly fired for it earlier i spoke with mr geary about his experience here's what he had to say. fired. the senate finance committee and the senate judiciary committee heard about the firing and heard about the investigation the senate open investigation of the f.c.c. that went on for eighteen months. in august of two thousand and seven the senate issued a joint report by the two committees the two committees found that the f.c.c. . had given deferential treatment preferential treatment because of his status as a prominent wall street member of the elite and because i had

pushed back. after i was told that you know we he was off balance i pushed back to take his deposition as testimony and that was the cause of my firing according to the two senate committees and due to have been dictated by this that at least there was an investigation. well. it wasn't the mere investigation but the result led to the cation there was a senate report of one hundred eight pages which concluded that that that i had been fired because of. my efforts to. appropriately take the testimony of a c.e.o. of a wall street firm there was a court case which concluded that the f.c.c. it and acted improperly there was. the n.s.c. c i.g. investigation which recommended that my supervisors be disciplined for their

contact and then i settled with the f.c.c. at the time for the largest settlement. ever reached by a federal employee arising out of a whistleblower claim ok at that case i think the probably the key in terms of indication is that i after i left the f.c.c. i put together the rest of the case and submitted a letter to the c.c. describing why they should reopen the investigation they reopened it charge they had. a hedge fund settle for twenty eight million dollars and collapsed well it sounds like to a good story there but let's move on because there was insider trading in the news recently and there have been a lot of investigations it seems almost like a lot of media hype what's your view on the way the f.c.c. has pursued insider trading since your case. well. back in

two thousand and five and two thousand and six hedge funds were running on. there were no cases no investigations the f.c.c. it basically. had me but wasn't even tracking what was going on so in two thousand and five when they terminated the investigation. that decision basically i think invited hedge funds to continue insider trading or even on a broader scale because they could see that the f.c.c. was not enforcing it as a consequence of the senate investigation in two thousand and six and two thousand and seven a crackdown started on insider trading especially by hedge funds and i think it made sense in two thousand and seven two thousand and eight the cases began to be filed in two thousand and nine and two thousand and ten. and eleven but we've

reached a point now where the crackdown has gone beyond the needs of law enforcement at least in my judgment and has sort of got a life of its own why are we watching the you know why don't we sooner or later write down on some of the major players hedge funds we're not even a proximate cause of the panic of two thousand and eight how come we're not seeing more attention on people like john corazon jamie diamond i don't know some of the bigger players. well that's that's an excellent question. the country was on the edge of an abyss in two thousand and eight and we all know the the wall street banks took us there unfortunately there has been no prosecution of any major executive of any of the wall street banks exactly spite the fact that . they delivered the crisis and it is cost the country trillions of dollars and.

triggered a financial recession which is i think is still on go. boy what i think is happening is that the media has essentially taken a head fake from the government the government claims it's cracking down on wall street but there's a non sequitur there. the government is cracking down on insider trading but insider trading really had nothing to do with the financial crisis of two thousand and eight so in a sense the public is being a p.s. dissuade by this apparent crackdown by the f.c.c. and the u.s. attorney in new york and the in the media is running with it the u.s. attorney for the southern district it was on the cover page of time magazine is the guy cracking down on wall street but it's not a crackdown on the real problems that gave us the financial crisis those guys are

walking away jamie dimon is walking away dick fuld is walking away and those guys are walking away with their pockets stuffed with hundreds of millions of dollars and the only thing that does is invite wall street to do an encore well let's talk about stuff in pockets here because a lot of believe people at the i.c.c. whether it's mary jo white or mary shapiro have been through this revolving door and mary shapiro just joined problem tory financial group there is a there is a corporate culture there i guess the regulatory culture that seems to encourage people just to cash out and is there are just some parent conflict of interest in the very structure at the i.c.c. especially. well i think there is i think the se c. defends its hiring of wall street players wall street attorneys on this theory that they're the only people that understand the securities laws securities laws aren't

that complex smart people can figure them out criminal lawyers prosecute all kinds of cases and they don't have to be an expert in any single territory of the criminal law what happened for example recently with robert kusama. mr kusama he was there he was an integral part of gearing up his crackdown on insider trading and. i think he claims something like one hundred fifty cases against various parties for insider trading and i'm reading that those investigations are ongoing at pundits of people they expect for these cases to be filed over the next five years so you're going to have got a backlog this saying that this the system is now is almost running on automatic control and investigating and kicking out these insider trading cases well at this point mr coo saami jumps from being the enforcement director to the other side door

to a bank now well no he goes back to a private law firm now you might think. is there a connection there you've geared up insider trading that's going to run for five years and then you go to the other side and join a law firm that represents individuals and companies that are being sued or charged with insider trading so in a sense you've got in and he took a five million dollars starting position there. the work is cut out for him over the next five years because it's already been geared up at the c c this world valving door operates you know across the s.c.c. it's not just in the division of enforcement it's in the general counsel's office it's among the commission it's in each of the divisions of the s.c.c. they're constantly rotating in and out of the other side and when they leap from the c c into private enterprise they take their rolodexes with them they usually

get you know anywhere from mr kusama case. his income. something like twenty two hundred twenty five hundred percent twenty five times he was making two hundred thousand there he goes to five million a year outside the c. c. now when you're inside the s.c.c. and then a two hundred thousand dollar a year job maybe you're making ins ends meet living in washington your kids are going to private schools or what have you at some point you start thinking about that five million dollar job and how cushy it's going to be and that's what happens i think it happens while people are at the f.c.c. they start planning where they're going to land when they get on the outside they take all their connections with them they go into private practice and they're set up in private practice to call back to the c c to their former subordinates to get favors. that was my interview with gary gary securities fraud attorney and former as he sees senior counsel now we will post the full interview online at youtube dot

com slash the prime interest and we talk about why records of preliminary investigations were so. simply destroyed as a matter of practice was it to protect the big names on wall street spoiler alert yes because we also talked with mr geary about one of his current whistle blowing clients that would be darcy flynn now mr flynn was helping to manage as he sees records and he found the f.c.c. was destroying records the practice of destroying investigatory files has been going on since one nine hundred ninety three mr flynn alerted the authorities at the national archives and then the white wash began there's also a revolving door in shadow regulatory stuff so check it out and coming up period digs into the fine print of whistle blowing and just how the perception of these individuals has changed over the decades from ellsberg to manning finally billion dollar of regular stands to actual battle the question of whether wall street culture is a democrat systemic or simply psychopathic they tune. dramas

that tries to be ignored. stories others through a few posts in the. third since changing the world. so picture of states. on different from runs to. joke to. you.

the worst for the whole thing. i don't. want. to have you ever seen anything like. the perception of was the blowers has changed over the past several decades some of the most famous of our time have exposed government scandals misuse of taxpayer

funds and fraudulent schemes but today's was a blowers don't have much recognition from members of congress or the government let's take a look into the fine print of whistleblower history will start with daniel ellsberg he was a us military analyst who exposed the famous pentagon papers healing to department of defense study that showed the american people had been misled. ellsberg risked his life in prison to stop a war that he helped plan of course his colleagues vilified him but today since the papers have been released in their entirety he's going to hailed as an american hero moving on we have mark felt he was the f.b.i. whistleblower who exposed the infamous watergate scandal however he held he had his identity from the public until two thousand and five also known as deep throat he was the secret informant that found president nixon's wiretaps in the d.n.c.

headquarters at the watergate building he leaked this information to carl bernstein and bob woodward of the washington post you know the story he this eventually led to the brits nation president nixon all of these men are held as heroes then and now next we have a john m. gravatt he became the first person and forty years to file a lawsuit under the false claims act as a foreman at g.e. aircraft engines he exposed that the government contractor was charging the government millions of dollars for work that was actually spent on commercial projects he was laid off by g.e. after blowing the whistle but he received a hefty settlement thanks to a bill passed by president lincoln and thanks to john grabbe that congress passed additional legislation that made it easier for more employees to see all of the false claims act millions more have been recovered in government contracting fraud cases sense although seen in positive light he did not get much press out of the

event as you can see we can even find a photo of him now into the twenty first century and the perception of whistleblowers has changed quite a bit first we have sherron watkins' she was the vice president of corporate development and ron and helped uncover the company's fraud this led to one of the largest bankruptcy in u.s. history several executives ended up in prison watkins however was initially. praised she was heavily criticized for not speaking up fast enough and took her five months from the time she wrote the whistleblowing memo to release it to the public and two thousand and one and quickly going down the hill we have gary geary story which you just heard of he was an f.c.c. whistleblower and was eventually fired after highlighting bessie's the unwillingness to prosecute under insider trading he was eventually vindicated for his wrongful termination but many americans have never even heard his name. and

today we have bradley manning and edward snowden both have lead to classified information about questionable questionable government programs but the government doesn't even consider them whistleblowers. i don't think mr snowden was a patriot as i said in my opening remarks i called for a thorough review of our surveillance operations before mr snowden may be. my preference and i think. the american people's preference would have been for a lawful orderly examination of these laws a. thoughtful fact based debate. there would then lead us to a better place. president obama says snowden should be brought back to the u.s. to be charged as such legal experts say the whistleblower protection act does not apply to him because he was a government contractor not

a government employee however fifty five percent of americans consider him a whistleblower and only thirty five consider him a traitor bradley manning was sentenced to thirty five years in prison today under the espionage act for leaking classified american information but there are some who consider him a whistleblower and save the result of his trial will make it difficult for the american people to hold their elected officials accountable when the government calls them a traitor who aided the enemy we can see that the way we perceive someone who exposes misconduct alleged just honesty or illegal activity has changed throughout the years but in the past decade there has been a sharp change for those who tried to expose any government wrongdoing during the same time the government's budget dead and rates have also increased and able in more surveillance and more crackdowns on whistleblowers to cite despite statements to the contrary it will be interesting to see if there is

a correlation between the government's growth and cases filed under the espionage act it's. about one in twenty five business leaders is a cycle. path now that is according to a study conducted by psychologist paul. these are psychopaths who lack emotion but use charm and manipulation to advance their careers earlier political commentator sam sax looked into whether these psychopaths are naturally attracted to wall street or is it the work environment that creates them. i know my savior can be theoretic sometimes oh.

yes this is just a movie about a psychopath banker but really we all know there's something a little off about wall street given recent behavior even the financial times wonders surely only someone with a serious personality disorder could have thought it was a good idea to sell a highly risky financial instrument like a city or squared to a naive investor who clearly did not understand the risks or would react with anger when told that they would not be paid multimillion pound bonuses because their previous bets had gone so badly wrong that their employer had to be bailed out by the taxpayer and we also have the patrick bateman ask headlines as you hear about the banker who is screaming racial slurs and strangers and got knocked out on the street or maybe the bankers who have cocaine fueled meltdowns were about the banker who stabbed a cabbie so what's behind this dr alexandra michelle studied a group of bankers for more than a decade what she described was

a factory on wall street that grinds people up and tosses them out during what i've found is that after approximately four years the picture changes performance declines not on technical skills the bankers are still superb as far as technical knowledge but creativity declines judgment declines ethical sensitivity could declines at about four because not surprisingly the body breaks down it's believed one percent of the general population is psychopath inc soup. when we say wall street actually has a higher percentage dr me show wasn't willing to go that far but i would say for now there is no evidence to support that kind of claim fair enough but i also had to talk to some former wall street insiders people you may refer to as recovering psychopaths alexis goldstein spent seven years on wall street she describes the culture it's a complete lack of empathy and it's really all about being instead of an aisle as you can be and having enough money and enough power so that you can basically

behave however you want and treat people have or you want the proper term for it is you money richard usko work that is gee there were times in my own work life where i had had to stay awake for seventy two hours to get a project then so a colleague or two two or three of us would get together and we'd stay up for three nights and we'd be drinking and we'd be using substances to keep going so we got pretty crazy but we did it because we were being encouraged to do it by the situation so were we psychopaths i don't think so i think we were people under enormous pressure we're not through yet it always seemed that wall street was the place where the psychopathic among us could not only take refuge but flourish but it appears more complicated than that so i think it all speaks to breeding a group of people that are very predatory in the way they pursue money and yes psychopathic is one where they could be used and i think the more that that happens

the more that that culture starts to attract people who have those personality carrick's characteristics to begin with so i think it's all of the above it's nature it's nurture whatever the reason for the perceived psychopathy emanating from our nation's financial district this should concern us all it's the fire economy finance insurance and real estate that is making up a larger and larger portion of our total economy and understanding who's running this industry might explain why wall street has been preying on the rest of our economy from homeowners. to oil consumers to most recently aluminum purchasers but in the end what can we do about it sure we can pass more regulations we can pass legislation like glass steagall to try and limit the damage that wall street bankers can do but really how do you legislate away psychopaths we have to stop lionizing people like for example jamie diamond the c.e.o. of j.p. morgan chase i think we have to make it culturally shameful to exhibit psychopathic

behavior and we're not going to be able to legislate our way around this but we can have a culture shift and i think the one thing that wall street is vulnerable is to is shame wall street is vulnerable to shame occupy prove that so in a way the occupy movement was just trying to hold an intervention for the bankers unfortunately wall street and its friends weren't ready to listen and they likely won't be ready to listen anytime soon as long as all that you money keeps flowing in. in washington observing wall street from a very safe distance. r t. what was a day over you guessed it was a willing and hypocrisy prime interest began mr holder who says he's finally going

to crack down on our wall street pose as we mentioned at the clock is running out not only on his attorney general shepperd from the crooks who precipitated the financial crisis in the first place and carry a giri didn't hesitate to blow the whistle on his own like employee you are employer that would be the f.c.c. and the but you really have to go there and feel there's no place on earth that's not a prey to the babies and already ravish currency thanks to an out of control central bank and finally we tracked our favorite whistleblowers beginning with those pesky papers from the pentagon right through and manning and snowden well thanks for tuning and we'll be back tomorrow with more from everyone at prime interests i'm terry and boring and have a great night. more

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news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. for a shelter all day. coming

up on our t.v. army whistleblower bradley manning sentenced to thirty five years in prison the judge handed down the sentence the man who leaked government data to wiki leaks an update on the case ahead from port meet and a series of new revelations show two sides of the n.s.a. on one hand the n.s.a. doesn't know what edward snowden fully has on it surveillance on the other it's reported that seventy five percent of u.s. internet traffic is being monitored more on these developments coming up and egypt remains in a state of chaos after the government crackdown on morsy supporters of the former egyptian leader hosni mubarak may soon be released from custody more on the crisis later in the show.