What else needs to happen before Jamie Dimon loses his job as CEO of JP Morgan Chase? Forget putting him in jail — I’ve given that up. But, when does the litany of lawsuit and criminal investigations add up to enough reasons to boot the guy? And so here is a new reason.
JPMorgan acknowledged for the first time the existence of the investigation — one of several mortgage-related problems looming for the bank — in a quarterly regulatory filing. It said that the civil division of the United States attorney’s office for the Eastern District of California, which covers a stretch of land that includes Sacramento and Yosemite, has “preliminarily concluded” that JPMorgan flouted federal laws with its sale of subprime mortgage securities from 2005 to 2007. The parallel criminal inquiry, according to one person briefed on the matter, is in a more preliminary stage.
Adding to scrutiny of the bank, federal prosecutors in Philadelphia are examining whether JPMorgan duped investors into buying troubled mortgage securities that later imploded, according to people briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The prosecutors are investigating whether JPMorgan churned out the mortgage-backed securities without ensuring that the investments met underwriting standards, the people said.
Let me ask the obvious question with an obvious answer: would any normal worker, not one from the financial elite, still have a job with investigations, fines and costs piling up that he had a hand in causing? If the average worker took a paper clip, he’d be fired. Not Jamie, the charmed scammer.
