Sun May 19 2013

Massey and Goldman under criminal investigation
by David Swanson
May 1, 2010

War makers, torturers, warrantless spyers, and all sorts of other categories of criminals are still off the hook. But there is a bit of "looking backward" going on. Two out of the three people whom we at StopTheChamber.com have asked for criminal investigations of are now under investigation. We're wondering about the third, the big one, the one that ties the other two and so much more together.

On April 12th, we asked for criminal charges against Massey Energy's Don Blankenship for the homicide of mine workers. We set up Facebook and Twitter campaigns in support. On the 15th, we sent a formal request to the attorney general for a special prosecutor. On the 26th we posted a video of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., calling for the prosecution of Blankenship. Kennedy said that “Massey Energy is a criminal enterprise” that "cannot do business without breaking the law." He said that Don Blankenship should be "in jail."

Massey is now facing a criminal investigation for the mine blasts, and possible bribery.

StopTheChamber.com also asked for a criminal investigation of Goldman Sachs. That, too, is now underway. A judge of the difference this will make is the stock market, where Goldman Sachs went up on Tuesday during congressional hearings, but dropped on Friday folllowing the investigation announcement.

So far so good. Two out of three ain't bad. But what about Tom Donohue. We're offering a $200,000 reward for help. We put out this release:

Bobby Kennedy Jr. And Eliot Spitzer Ask, Where Are The Prosecutors?
Watchdog Group Calls For Criminal Prosecutions Of U.S. Chamber Of Commerce

Washington, D.C.--StopTheChamber.com, a network of national organizations dedicated to corporate accountability, has been calling for months for a full criminal investigation into the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its top staff, including CEO Tom Donohue, for racketeering, fraud, false reporting, and campaign finance violations. Now the network is adding obstruction of justice to that list. In the past two weeks, the United States has been hit with three major disasters, all tied to the polices and practices of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. First, 29 miners were killed in a Massey Energy coal mine explosion, second, 11 oil workers were killed in an British Petroleum oil rig fire, and third, Goldman Sachs was charged with a massive billion dollar fraud enterprise. Each of these companies uses the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, with its army of lobbyists and lawyers, as its first line of defense, corruptly influencing politicians and judges to protect corporations and thwart investigations, and spinning public relations to justify criminal conduct.

The Chamber has spent hundreds of millions on behalf of Wall Street robber barons, and has been directly coordinating with Goldman Sachs to maximize its profits and minimize the fallout from its criminal activities. The Chamber has been fighting laws and regulations to protect worker safety on behalf of Massey Energy and British Petroleum, and in fact, Massey CEO Don Blankenship is a Director of the Chamber and confidant of Chamber CEO Tom Donohue. Massey and BP have been cited for thousands of safety violations, while the Chamber has been representing them and their trade groups to avoid regulation of any kind.

Bobby Kennedy Jr. said on Sunday that “Massey Energy is a criminal enterprise” that “cannot stay in business without breaking the law.” He says that Don Blankenship should “be in jail” for creating the conditions that led to the deaths of the 29 miners. On Tuesday, Eliot Spitzer, probably the most experienced attorney general to go after Wall Street criminals, asked, with regard to Goldman Sachs, “Where are the prosecutors?”

StopTheChamber.com calls on both the United States Attorney General and state attorneys general to launch widespread criminal investigations of the operations of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for conspiracy, obstruction of justice, racketeering and other serious felonies. “The Chamber is like the mafia dons of past eras,” said campaign spokesman and attorney Kevin Zeese. “All the criminal companies have to pay off the Chamber in order to get protection. The Chamber in turn launders that money in secret, and then pays off judges, politicians and even the media with donations, advertising, jobs, and other means of corruption. Tom Donohue, to quote Eliot Spitzer, ‘has never once found a crime that he couldn't justify, as long as it was committed by one of his dues-paying members.’ The Chamber, like the mafia, also uses threats to get its way, unleashing waves of goons, lobbyists and lawyers to intimidate anyone who dares to challenge it. Tom Donohue proudly says that the Chamber is so strong that ‘when it bites you in the butt, you bleed.’ We are calling on attorneys general across the country to focus their prosecutorial resources on the root of the corporate wrongdoing problem, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which enables, protects and conspires with these criminal companies to violate the law to the detriment of all Americans. There can be no more business as usual, and the Chamber must be held accountable in the same way the mafia dons were held accountable—prosecutions for conspiracy and racketeering.”

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David Swanson is the author of the new book "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union" by Seven Stories Press. You can order it and find out when tour will be in your town: http://davidswanson.org/book.